A standalone (SA) TiVo has a $12.95/mo subscription. A lifetime subscription costs $250. So you recoup that cost in under 2 years.
A DirecTiVo is another matter, since it's only $5/mo. It's questionable that a lifetime sub is worthwhile on one.
And unless HD finally takes off, the TiVo will have a lifetime considerably longer than a couple years. The software won't become outdated -- that's what you're really paying for in the subscription. My TiVo came with v1.2 of the software on it. Since then it's been upgraded to 1.3, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0, each time adding more features.
Oh, TiVo will still work even if HD takes off... it just won't record anything in HD and you'll need some kind of converter box for it to understand the channels and sub-channels.
Lifetime of the unit, not of the company, not of you.
The subscription moves with the unit, not with you. If you buy a TiVo, get a lifetime sub on it, and sell it then you sell the subscription with it. Of course, TiVo's with lifetime subs sell for about $250 more than one without, so currently there's no money lost.
The obvious downside is that you can't transfer to a different kind of TiVo. If you have cable now, buy a regular TiVo, and then later get DirecTV you can't transfer the subscription to a new DirecTiVo. Or if they come out with a HDTiVo in the future (no, they haven't even speculated on doing such) then you're still stuck with the old one.
I don't know that this is a hard and fast rule though. There are a few select TiVo subscribers that fell into a grandfather clause where they can transfer their subscription once. They bought lifetime subs prior to the wording being more clear on the matter.
As far as worrying about the TiVo unit failing -- I haven't heard much hue and cry about faulty machines. The modem in them sucks and dies to even a vague hint of lightning (one of mine has died twice, both times requiring $99 to fix), but there are 3rd parties that will repair them now and a surge protector helps a great deal. The hard drives are replaceable. The fan is the only other moving part, and theoretically replaceable.
Actually one of my VCRs is still unplugged from the last time I moved it to record something off the TiVo.
The other one is plugged in (and flashing 12:00), but only because it acts as a switchbox for the DVD player (very old TV with only a single coax input - TiVo goes to VCR coax, DVD goes to VCR RCA inputs). I suppose I could buy a separate switch, but why bother?
Yes, I could set the time on the VCR. And have it get wiped next time the power goes out. Naah.
Ok, let's conjecture that the Supreme Court finds for Eldred and (at the very least) removes the retroactive copyright extention.
Steamboat Willie passes into the public domain. The Micky Mouse character is still protected by trademark, and incidentilly the modern representation of the mouse is still copyrighted since it's far more recent than the charactiture that was in the 1928 short.
So what does this mean? It means that you can make as many copies of the short as you want. You can edit the short or make other derivative works from it - maybe further down the river, or a prequel, or whatever. You can even use the images from the short in another short or movie - even a pornographic one.
But if you tried to use the Mickey Mouse name then Disney would sue your ass off. Because that is still trademarked and will be for the rest of eternity (or until nobody gives a crap about it, whichever comes first).
Most of Disney's, Valenti's, and the government's arguments fall apart because of this. The loss of control is minimal. And nothing prevents the Disney corporation from still selling Steamboat Willie -- the only difference there is that they're not the only ones who can sell it (or give it away, or whatever).
Valenti claims that the greatest resource the studios have is their film library. Even if you agree with that, most people would agree that the value of a 70 year old movie is close to zero. Yes, there are rare exceptions -- Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Casablanca. And in those exceptions the studio has been generating revenue for 70 years. Isn't that enough? Have they not been paid for their investment and innovation?
The key thing to remember is that all intellectual property laws are a creation of our system. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc. grant the inventor rights that did not exist otherwise. Without them they would default to having no protection at all. I think few people would argue that some protection does stimulate invention and innovation. However the flip side can also be argued - that too much protection stifles the very creation that was desired. Which is essentially what the current lawsuit boils down to.
As for the last paragraph - you really should learn more before giving someone money. Or have you recently been talking to some Nigerians who are desperate to get money into the country?
You're right... I actually misread this page which states that MIT is the only educational institution with a Class A. Struck me as odd, but I forgot about the universities that gave their class A space back a few years ago.
Anyone have a list of the original class A grants?
MIT was allocated a class A address space (18.*.*.*) back when the net was young. They are the only educational institution to have been allocated a class A space. They also have two class B spaces (128.52.*.* and 129.55.*.*) and 10 class C addresses.
That gives them a whopping 16,518,636 individual addresses -- assuming you reserve 0 and 255 of each quad for broadcast (which is probably incorrect - 128.52.255.5 and 128.52.0.5 should be separate, valid addresses, so that increases the total by another 100,000 or so).
China appears to have a dozen class B addresses and numerous class C addresses. I'm probably googling for the wrong info which is why I can't nail down a number, but it's certainly less than 259 class B addresses (which is what you'd need to match MIT).
The reason for this is not because China wants to firewall the country, but because MIT was one of the first institutions using Arpanet and was instrumental in the development of TCP/IP and the various networks that became the Internet. It's essentially an artifact of computer history. MIT shouldn't have to give up its class A address if it doesn't want to, but in retrospect it's really quite absurd to have allocated class A addresses as was done.
Ok, as much as we all laugh at Lance, or whatever his name is, from N'Sync trying to go into space, I think it was moronic of everyone involved not to make sure this happened, that he got up there and back safely, and had one hell of a good time.
The entire space program has been gradually fading from world view, and particularly from the Western world. Yes, there are programs still going on at NASA and ESA and even in China, but it's nowhere near what was hoped for in the 1960s and 70s. Putting a high profile celebrity into space would bring a lot of attention back to the space program. Would it be fleeting? Of course. That's what media attention is nowadays. But it would probably enspire a lot young kids to go to space, just as the early US and Soviet astro/cosmonauts did nearly half a century ago.
In most industries the QA department is a joke. A really bad one. QA is the last thing budgeted and the first thing cut -- because when you have a deadline to hit management always thinks that QA is superfluous. I've heard VP's state that it's better to have a buggy product out than no product at all. And the VP in question really didn't care just how buggy it was. With that kind of attitude toward release quality QA can be viewed as nothing but an impediment to getting product out (and, to be fair, some QA departments do view that as their job - preventing anything from being released). So some QA departments just rubber stamp things instead of doing real testing.
On top of that getting good QA people is extremely difficult. A good QA tester has to have enough technical expertise to design test programs, methods, and sets themselves (having the coders do this defeats the purpose of QA), but doesn't want to be a coder fulltime. That particular combination of abilities and desires is very rare indeed.
Finally, and perhaps worst of all, a good QA department is invisible. If QA has done their job then there will be minimal complaints from end users -- sure, there will be issues, but nothing huge. When you never have any huge problems, management tends to forget that it was QA that caught those huge problems before the product shipped.
Where does QA work? Usually in industries like Aerospace, Medical, telecomm, and power generation -- industries which don't have a margin for error. They have decades old QA practices that often got instituted the hard way. They also have relatively little competition and insanely high development costs.
Frankly, OSS does a far better job of QA than most closed shops, because the QA team is not paid by the same company/group developing the software. So there's no incentive to not report a bug, but there's also no incentive to block release -- if a major bug is revealed then Joe Blow user isn't going to get fired for failing to find it.
Oh, I'm sure you won't agree with me. Get another decade or so of experience in the real world and I suspect that you'll think differently.
How is this a stealth PDF? I hovered my mouse button over the document link and immediately saw that it was a pdf. That's what the last three letters on the filename are for you know.
I suggest that you start looking for cheap, functional motherboards and other parts at used computer stores and the like then. Because the legacy ports are going bye-bye. Abit is certainly well ahead of the game here, but I'll be surprised if you can buy a system in 3 years that has a parallel, serial, game, or PS/2 port. They're redundant now and removing them can cut costs and simplify connections.
If this wasn't true then we'd still be damned with 5 1/4" floppies and even 8" floppies. You'd still have MFM and RLL drive connections available.
The floppy disk controller is likely to stick around for the forseeable future -- nobody has managed to replace it, and it's still needed even with bootable CDs and the like.
Legacy hardware eventually becomes desupported, and unless you plan in advance you can get left holding the bag. Ask any of the numerous corporations that have data storage on tape formats for which the tape drives are no longer available.
As usual, the last 10% of performance does not equate to the last 10% of price.
If you need the features/benefits that are available in that last 10%, then you're going to have to pay a huge premium. Or wait a few years for it to filter down to the other 90%.
Go back a decade and try to get 3D video at 640x480 that runs close to 30 fps. You're talking an SGI Oxygen with a RealityEngine2 costing about $500k or so.
Now I can buy a card that does all that, at a higher resolution and fps, with better textures for about $50.
But if you needed that ability 10 years ago then you paid the price. Such is life at the bleeding edge.
The problem is, as the OP said, with the way the submitter wrote the story.
Integrated video is still not a viable solution for hardcore computer gamers. Enthusiasts will still shun motherboards with integrated video.
Which is exactly contrary to what Keefe said. Certainly these motherboards are useful and fulfill a rather large niche in the market, but anyone with a clue will not buy a MX chipset or a stripped down ATI product. They're too limited and are getting outstripped too fast.
Oh, and just because you're a hardcore gamer doesn't mean you upgrade your box every 6 months (ok, maybe the true hardcores do). My main box is over 2 1/2 years old now. It runs UT2k3 pretty well, although with all features turned off and only at 800x600. It has a GeForce2 in it which I bought the 2nd day the card was available. And while I paid a premium for it, it's certainly done me well. I'll buy a NV30 (GeForce5?) when it comes out, and probably pay a premium for it. But I won't have to upgrade my card every year because it's become outpaced so quickly. Which is why I won't even consider integrated video - sure, it runs current games fine. Will it run the top of the line games at an acceptable level in 2 years? I doubt it.
Microsoft has had a bad track record for not providing a proper patch until the bug is fully exposed
Very much agreed. Of course, if people would just stop disclosing vulnerabilities then it wouldn't be a problem. Right?
Yes, that was heavy sarcasm.
For example, there is presently a bug in the certificate software that allows a man-in-the-middle attack on an SSL connection
Been fixed, allegedly, under all supported browsers and OS's. I saw the patch for my system last time I did an update (and I'm doing another one tonight). And I'm pretty sure my system is near the bottom tier for support at this point.
there is little you can do from a system or procedural perspective beyond keeping up with patches
That's true for all systems on all OS's. Or is Slapper just a figment of the Internet's imagination?
Not even gonna touch Outlook. I use it at work under duress, and refuse to at home. Oh, and there's a new virus out there that's doing pretty much what you suggest - it's gathering private information (including keystrokes) and emailing the data back to some email address. It's using vulnerabilities that have been patched for over a year now, but, surprise, not everyone has updated.
Because 6.0 broke some things from 5.5 (ex - javascript code over 1024 chars, which is nice for booklets), and by and since 5.5 is still supported security patches are available for it as well.
FWIW, a couple of those bugs were fixed in today's security patch (namely HTML help file stuff and another one I don't recall off the top of my head).
Are there holes still unpatched? Yup. Does OSS do a better job releasing fixes? Yes, and while they're often untested they do fix the problem without negative side effects most of the time.
But it's really not as doom and gloom as the OP made out, which is all I was really trying to point out.
If you are using IE, your computer is vunerable to numerous security breaches
Yes. If you're not downloading security updates.
But the same is true for everything else on the list. Conversely, if you are constantly keeping up to date on security patches then you are considerably less vulnerable.
I believe the point you were trying to make is that it's the only client program on the list - all the others are servers. And I'm honestly surprised that neither Outlook nor Outlook Express made the list - they're considerably more problematic with regards to security IMO (but I'm not a "professional" in this context).
As to why it's not #1 - well, first there's a lot fewer vulnerabilities listed. Additionally the extent of the vulnerabilities are not as large. Relatively few virii/trojans/etc. spread via IE, while there are still IIS servers out there spamming the world with Code Red. Secondly, as a client program it is somewhat more secure than a server by design. I could be running a totally unpatched client that's vulnerable six ways to Sunday, but if I don't surf to your site (or open a local infected file with the client) then I can't be infected. Servers, however, are vulnerable if they're running - I don't have to invite you to break into my system, I left the door open with a lovely "Open House" sign up.
Hey, if you know a new solution to deadlocks and race conditions so that it's trivially easy to solve all of them in realtime, then go talk to a processor vendor of your choice - you won't ever have to invent anything again.
Until that happens it's simply not possible for anything but the most trivial of tasks (which is already done by compilers and processors with multiple execution units).
Well, that presumes they're legal already. There's no case law indicating that, and excepting the few states (two?) that have adopted the new UCC, it's questionable at best.
In fact, at least one proviso of most EULAs is definitely not enforceable (at least in California). Namely the one stating that you cannot resell the software - see this article.
Problem is, if you don't accept the terms, you won't be able to take it back to the store
IANAL, but either the manufacturer or the retailer have to accept it back. If they don't, the EULA is essentially unenforceable since a key component was not met. A lot of manufacturers or distributors will accept the software back, albeit under duress.
Frankly, I don't see why software should be any more protected from lawsuits than anything else. Standard case law should take care of this. If you maliciously distributed software with essential flaws that you knew of then you'd still be on the hook. Otherwise you'd be free and clear (excepting legal costs, which is somewhat the point). I'm a software developer too, but I don't see why we should be any more protected than a manufacturer of material goods. Yes, software is complex. So is a car engine. And there's a difference between bugs and negligence.
The problem is that EULA's don't just try to indemnify against damages -- they attempt to limit your rights (right of first sale, redistribution, fair use rights, free speech rights (cannot use for benchmarking, etc) -- and no, most of these are not "constitutional rights" but are rights granted through case law) or grant the software/seller/manufacturer additional rights that you may not agree to (c.f. spyware EULAs). This is utter crap and should not be legal. If you want to update your own software, that's one thing. But you shouldn't do it without my ok, without notice, and you certainly shouldn't touch other software without explicitly notifying me of it and making it reverseable.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but I do think it winds up being simpler in the long run for everyone involved (at least as long as you're trying to be above the board about things and not scum).
Rep Lofgren's bill probably isn't even intended to pass
This isn't even a question. There's a reason why nobody tries to put bills out shortly before an election - bills that are not passed prior to the end of session are immediately dropped dead on the floor.
The real question is if this bill or another like it will be introduced to the Senate and/or House again next year after the start of the new session. At that point you have roughly 2 years to pass it, which just might be enough time for the debate.
I do think you're dead on with your analysis though. And I also think it's important for people to contact their congresspeople on it.
So you are telling me that upper management would NEVER bury an R&D breakthrough that upper mangement thought would hurt their profits?
They could try. And when one of the researchers turned whistleblower then the company would get ripped to shreds. Literally.
That said, if you get bean counters in upper management that are more interested in profits than improving the human condition (and here it's important to note that not everyone in upper management is going to be this way, particularly not at younger firms), then there won't be an R&D breakthrough like you mention because the money won't be spent in ways that are likely to result in such a breakthrough.
By and large people asking for a "cure to cancer" are showing their ignorance. We've really solved most of the easy problems. The rest are sticky because the solutions are not straight forward. There isn't likely to ever be a pill or a shot that will cure cancer - but there will be increasingly effective regimens of treatment with fewer side effects (most new cancer drugs aren't cancer killers - they're drugs to fight the godawful side effects of the cancer killers).
But even with that said, it's pretty damn hard to find a cure if you're not looking for one.
If all of this really concerns you, I suggest donating to a non-profit group which does fund research aimed toward cures and not just treatments. There's a lot of them out there. You can also contribute CPU time toward Folding@Home or the UD Cancer Research projects, both of which are non-profit.
Drug companies have 20 years from the filing of patent to have exclusive rights to the drug. After going through NDA and FDA approvals the average drug gets 7 years on the market
A question for you, which you may not know - why so long? Yes, you have to do both animal and human testing during that period, but why is it taking (on average) 13 years to do all of this? As I understand it, the standard human testing period is 1 year. I don't know about animal testing, but I'd guess it's about a year as well. Even giving an additional year to do analysis on those tests, that's only 3 years. Does all the governmental approval really eat up another decade?
As I understand it the current program running on the UD: Cancer project (LigandFitII says my install) will not be used for for-profit purposes. Future projects utilizing the clients could be used for for-profit ventures, but UD has stated that you'll be able to opt out of those when the time comes.
I did do some checking on this prior to installing the software, and was adequately pleased with what I found. I know too many people who have died or suffered from cancer, and I worked on an oncology ward in high school. Frankly, helping cure cancer is a hell of a lot more important to me than finding an encryption key, and to some extent I don't mind if a company does profit off my CPU cycles in this case.
In all reality, if a drug company found an actual cure for one of the more common forms of cancer (and not just another chemo drug), then they wouldn't be able to pull Viagra-like profits from it. Drug patents have been assumed by governments before (most recent cases involved various HIV drug regimens and some South American countries) when it was deemed in the public interest. The actual cost to manufacture pills is in the pennies and usually does not require multi billion dollar infrastructures (merely tens of millions), so it's pretty hard for a drug company to stop someone from manufacturing a drug regardless of who technically owns the patent.
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A useful life of a few years?
Have you even bothered to do the math?
A standalone (SA) TiVo has a $12.95/mo subscription. A lifetime subscription costs $250. So you recoup that cost in under 2 years.
A DirecTiVo is another matter, since it's only $5/mo. It's questionable that a lifetime sub is worthwhile on one.
And unless HD finally takes off, the TiVo will have a lifetime considerably longer than a couple years. The software won't become outdated -- that's what you're really paying for in the subscription. My TiVo came with v1.2 of the software on it. Since then it's been upgraded to 1.3, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0, each time adding more features.
Oh, TiVo will still work even if HD takes off... it just won't record anything in HD and you'll need some kind of converter box for it to understand the channels and sub-channels.
Lifetime of the unit, not of the company, not of you.
The subscription moves with the unit, not with you. If you buy a TiVo, get a lifetime sub on it, and sell it then you sell the subscription with it. Of course, TiVo's with lifetime subs sell for about $250 more than one without, so currently there's no money lost.
The obvious downside is that you can't transfer to a different kind of TiVo. If you have cable now, buy a regular TiVo, and then later get DirecTV you can't transfer the subscription to a new DirecTiVo. Or if they come out with a HDTiVo in the future (no, they haven't even speculated on doing such) then you're still stuck with the old one.
I don't know that this is a hard and fast rule though. There are a few select TiVo subscribers that fell into a grandfather clause where they can transfer their subscription once. They bought lifetime subs prior to the wording being more clear on the matter.
As far as worrying about the TiVo unit failing -- I haven't heard much hue and cry about faulty machines. The modem in them sucks and dies to even a vague hint of lightning (one of mine has died twice, both times requiring $99 to fix), but there are 3rd parties that will repair them now and a surge protector helps a great deal. The hard drives are replaceable. The fan is the only other moving part, and theoretically replaceable.
ROFL -- too true.
Actually one of my VCRs is still unplugged from the last time I moved it to record something off the TiVo.
The other one is plugged in (and flashing 12:00), but only because it acts as a switchbox for the DVD player (very old TV with only a single coax input - TiVo goes to VCR coax, DVD goes to VCR RCA inputs). I suppose I could buy a separate switch, but why bother?
Yes, I could set the time on the VCR. And have it get wiped next time the power goes out. Naah.
Ok, let's conjecture that the Supreme Court finds for Eldred and (at the very least) removes the retroactive copyright extention.
Steamboat Willie passes into the public domain. The Micky Mouse character is still protected by trademark, and incidentilly the modern representation of the mouse is still copyrighted since it's far more recent than the charactiture that was in the 1928 short.
So what does this mean? It means that you can make as many copies of the short as you want. You can edit the short or make other derivative works from it - maybe further down the river, or a prequel, or whatever. You can even use the images from the short in another short or movie - even a pornographic one.
But if you tried to use the Mickey Mouse name then Disney would sue your ass off. Because that is still trademarked and will be for the rest of eternity (or until nobody gives a crap about it, whichever comes first).
Most of Disney's, Valenti's, and the government's arguments fall apart because of this. The loss of control is minimal. And nothing prevents the Disney corporation from still selling Steamboat Willie -- the only difference there is that they're not the only ones who can sell it (or give it away, or whatever).
Valenti claims that the greatest resource the studios have is their film library. Even if you agree with that, most people would agree that the value of a 70 year old movie is close to zero. Yes, there are rare exceptions -- Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Casablanca. And in those exceptions the studio has been generating revenue for 70 years. Isn't that enough? Have they not been paid for their investment and innovation?
The key thing to remember is that all intellectual property laws are a creation of our system. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc. grant the inventor rights that did not exist otherwise. Without them they would default to having no protection at all. I think few people would argue that some protection does stimulate invention and innovation. However the flip side can also be argued - that too much protection stifles the very creation that was desired. Which is essentially what the current lawsuit boils down to.
Mod this up... except the last paragraph maybe.
As for the last paragraph - you really should learn more before giving someone money. Or have you recently been talking to some Nigerians who are desperate to get money into the country?
You're right... I actually misread this page which states that MIT is the only educational institution with a Class A. Struck me as odd, but I forgot about the universities that gave their class A space back a few years ago.
Anyone have a list of the original class A grants?
MIT was allocated a class A address space (18.*.*.*) back when the net was young. They are the only educational institution to have been allocated a class A space. They also have two class B spaces (128.52.*.* and 129.55.*.*) and 10 class C addresses.
That gives them a whopping 16,518,636 individual addresses -- assuming you reserve 0 and 255 of each quad for broadcast (which is probably incorrect - 128.52.255.5 and 128.52.0.5 should be separate, valid addresses, so that increases the total by another 100,000 or so).
China appears to have a dozen class B addresses and numerous class C addresses. I'm probably googling for the wrong info which is why I can't nail down a number, but it's certainly less than 259 class B addresses (which is what you'd need to match MIT).
The reason for this is not because China wants to firewall the country, but because MIT was one of the first institutions using Arpanet and was instrumental in the development of TCP/IP and the various networks that became the Internet. It's essentially an artifact of computer history. MIT shouldn't have to give up its class A address if it doesn't want to, but in retrospect it's really quite absurd to have allocated class A addresses as was done.
Ok, as much as we all laugh at Lance, or whatever his name is, from N'Sync trying to go into space, I think it was moronic of everyone involved not to make sure this happened, that he got up there and back safely, and had one hell of a good time.
The entire space program has been gradually fading from world view, and particularly from the Western world. Yes, there are programs still going on at NASA and ESA and even in China, but it's nowhere near what was hoped for in the 1960s and 70s. Putting a high profile celebrity into space would bring a lot of attention back to the space program. Would it be fleeting? Of course. That's what media attention is nowadays. But it would probably enspire a lot young kids to go to space, just as the early US and Soviet astro/cosmonauts did nearly half a century ago.
You're a new coder, aren't you?
In most industries the QA department is a joke. A really bad one. QA is the last thing budgeted and the first thing cut -- because when you have a deadline to hit management always thinks that QA is superfluous. I've heard VP's state that it's better to have a buggy product out than no product at all. And the VP in question really didn't care just how buggy it was. With that kind of attitude toward release quality QA can be viewed as nothing but an impediment to getting product out (and, to be fair, some QA departments do view that as their job - preventing anything from being released). So some QA departments just rubber stamp things instead of doing real testing.
On top of that getting good QA people is extremely difficult. A good QA tester has to have enough technical expertise to design test programs, methods, and sets themselves (having the coders do this defeats the purpose of QA), but doesn't want to be a coder fulltime. That particular combination of abilities and desires is very rare indeed.
Finally, and perhaps worst of all, a good QA department is invisible. If QA has done their job then there will be minimal complaints from end users -- sure, there will be issues, but nothing huge. When you never have any huge problems, management tends to forget that it was QA that caught those huge problems before the product shipped.
Where does QA work? Usually in industries like Aerospace, Medical, telecomm, and power generation -- industries which don't have a margin for error. They have decades old QA practices that often got instituted the hard way. They also have relatively little competition and insanely high development costs.
Frankly, OSS does a far better job of QA than most closed shops, because the QA team is not paid by the same company/group developing the software. So there's no incentive to not report a bug, but there's also no incentive to block release -- if a major bug is revealed then Joe Blow user isn't going to get fired for failing to find it.
Oh, I'm sure you won't agree with me. Get another decade or so of experience in the real world and I suspect that you'll think differently.
How is this a stealth PDF? I hovered my mouse button over the document link and immediately saw that it was a pdf. That's what the last three letters on the filename are for you know.
If you'd bothered to read the article or look at the motherboard pictures you would've seen Serial ATA support and connectors listed.
Now maybe we'll actually see some SATA drives for sale.
I suggest that you start looking for cheap, functional motherboards and other parts at used computer stores and the like then. Because the legacy ports are going bye-bye. Abit is certainly well ahead of the game here, but I'll be surprised if you can buy a system in 3 years that has a parallel, serial, game, or PS/2 port. They're redundant now and removing them can cut costs and simplify connections.
If this wasn't true then we'd still be damned with 5 1/4" floppies and even 8" floppies. You'd still have MFM and RLL drive connections available.
The floppy disk controller is likely to stick around for the forseeable future -- nobody has managed to replace it, and it's still needed even with bootable CDs and the like.
Legacy hardware eventually becomes desupported, and unless you plan in advance you can get left holding the bag. Ask any of the numerous corporations that have data storage on tape formats for which the tape drives are no longer available.
As usual, the last 10% of performance does not equate to the last 10% of price.
If you need the features/benefits that are available in that last 10%, then you're going to have to pay a huge premium. Or wait a few years for it to filter down to the other 90%.
Go back a decade and try to get 3D video at 640x480 that runs close to 30 fps. You're talking an SGI Oxygen with a RealityEngine2 costing about $500k or so.
Now I can buy a card that does all that, at a higher resolution and fps, with better textures for about $50.
But if you needed that ability 10 years ago then you paid the price. Such is life at the bleeding edge.
The wording was misleading, and obviously so.
Substitute "any serious gamer" for "anyone" and it reads properly.
And no, games are not the most important part of computing, but if it's what you want to use your home PC for then you are a moron to buy an MX card.
The problem is, as the OP said, with the way the submitter wrote the story.
Integrated video is still not a viable solution for hardcore computer gamers. Enthusiasts will still shun motherboards with integrated video.
Which is exactly contrary to what Keefe said. Certainly these motherboards are useful and fulfill a rather large niche in the market, but anyone with a clue will not buy a MX chipset or a stripped down ATI product. They're too limited and are getting outstripped too fast.
Oh, and just because you're a hardcore gamer doesn't mean you upgrade your box every 6 months (ok, maybe the true hardcores do). My main box is over 2 1/2 years old now. It runs UT2k3 pretty well, although with all features turned off and only at 800x600. It has a GeForce2 in it which I bought the 2nd day the card was available. And while I paid a premium for it, it's certainly done me well. I'll buy a NV30 (GeForce5?) when it comes out, and probably pay a premium for it. But I won't have to upgrade my card every year because it's become outpaced so quickly. Which is why I won't even consider integrated video - sure, it runs current games fine. Will it run the top of the line games at an acceptable level in 2 years? I doubt it.
Microsoft has had a bad track record for not providing a proper patch until the bug is fully exposed
Very much agreed. Of course, if people would just stop disclosing vulnerabilities then it wouldn't be a problem. Right?
Yes, that was heavy sarcasm.
For example, there is presently a bug in the certificate software that allows a man-in-the-middle attack on an SSL connection
Been fixed, allegedly, under all supported browsers and OS's. I saw the patch for my system last time I did an update (and I'm doing another one tonight). And I'm pretty sure my system is near the bottom tier for support at this point.
there is little you can do from a system or procedural perspective beyond keeping up with patches
That's true for all systems on all OS's. Or is Slapper just a figment of the Internet's imagination?
Not even gonna touch Outlook. I use it at work under duress, and refuse to at home. Oh, and there's a new virus out there that's doing pretty much what you suggest - it's gathering private information (including keystrokes) and emailing the data back to some email address. It's using vulnerabilities that have been patched for over a year now, but, surprise, not everyone has updated.
Because 6.0 broke some things from 5.5 (ex - javascript code over 1024 chars, which is nice for booklets), and by and since 5.5 is still supported security patches are available for it as well.
FWIW, a couple of those bugs were fixed in today's security patch (namely HTML help file stuff and another one I don't recall off the top of my head).
Are there holes still unpatched? Yup. Does OSS do a better job releasing fixes? Yes, and while they're often untested they do fix the problem without negative side effects most of the time.
But it's really not as doom and gloom as the OP made out, which is all I was really trying to point out.
That's Media Player, not IE. The two pieces of software are not the same.
There has never been, to my knowledge, any clause in a security update for IE that changed the EULA in such a negative manner.
I wholly agree with flacco that such clauses in security updates are unacceptable.
If you are using IE, your computer is vunerable to numerous security breaches
Yes. If you're not downloading security updates.
But the same is true for everything else on the list. Conversely, if you are constantly keeping up to date on security patches then you are considerably less vulnerable.
I believe the point you were trying to make is that it's the only client program on the list - all the others are servers. And I'm honestly surprised that neither Outlook nor Outlook Express made the list - they're considerably more problematic with regards to security IMO (but I'm not a "professional" in this context).
As to why it's not #1 - well, first there's a lot fewer vulnerabilities listed. Additionally the extent of the vulnerabilities are not as large. Relatively few virii/trojans/etc. spread via IE, while there are still IIS servers out there spamming the world with Code Red. Secondly, as a client program it is somewhat more secure than a server by design. I could be running a totally unpatched client that's vulnerable six ways to Sunday, but if I don't surf to your site (or open a local infected file with the client) then I can't be infected. Servers, however, are vulnerable if they're running - I don't have to invite you to break into my system, I left the door open with a lovely "Open House" sign up.
Hey, if you know a new solution to deadlocks and race conditions so that it's trivially easy to solve all of them in realtime, then go talk to a processor vendor of your choice - you won't ever have to invent anything again.
Until that happens it's simply not possible for anything but the most trivial of tasks (which is already done by compilers and processors with multiple execution units).
I'd like to see EULA's remain legal
Well, that presumes they're legal already. There's no case law indicating that, and excepting the few states (two?) that have adopted the new UCC, it's questionable at best.
In fact, at least one proviso of most EULAs is definitely not enforceable (at least in California). Namely the one stating that you cannot resell the software - see this article.
Problem is, if you don't accept the terms, you won't be able to take it back to the store
IANAL, but either the manufacturer or the retailer have to accept it back. If they don't, the EULA is essentially unenforceable since a key component was not met. A lot of manufacturers or distributors will accept the software back, albeit under duress.
Frankly, I don't see why software should be any more protected from lawsuits than anything else. Standard case law should take care of this. If you maliciously distributed software with essential flaws that you knew of then you'd still be on the hook. Otherwise you'd be free and clear (excepting legal costs, which is somewhat the point). I'm a software developer too, but I don't see why we should be any more protected than a manufacturer of material goods. Yes, software is complex. So is a car engine. And there's a difference between bugs and negligence.
The problem is that EULA's don't just try to indemnify against damages -- they attempt to limit your rights (right of first sale, redistribution, fair use rights, free speech rights (cannot use for benchmarking, etc) -- and no, most of these are not "constitutional rights" but are rights granted through case law) or grant the software/seller/manufacturer additional rights that you may not agree to (c.f. spyware EULAs). This is utter crap and should not be legal. If you want to update your own software, that's one thing. But you shouldn't do it without my ok, without notice, and you certainly shouldn't touch other software without explicitly notifying me of it and making it reverseable.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but I do think it winds up being simpler in the long run for everyone involved (at least as long as you're trying to be above the board about things and not scum).
Rep Lofgren's bill probably isn't even intended to pass
This isn't even a question. There's a reason why nobody tries to put bills out shortly before an election - bills that are not passed prior to the end of session are immediately dropped dead on the floor.
The real question is if this bill or another like it will be introduced to the Senate and/or House again next year after the start of the new session. At that point you have roughly 2 years to pass it, which just might be enough time for the debate.
I do think you're dead on with your analysis though. And I also think it's important for people to contact their congresspeople on it.
So you are telling me that upper management would NEVER bury an R&D breakthrough that upper mangement thought would hurt their profits?
They could try. And when one of the researchers turned whistleblower then the company would get ripped to shreds. Literally.
That said, if you get bean counters in upper management that are more interested in profits than improving the human condition (and here it's important to note that not everyone in upper management is going to be this way, particularly not at younger firms), then there won't be an R&D breakthrough like you mention because the money won't be spent in ways that are likely to result in such a breakthrough.
By and large people asking for a "cure to cancer" are showing their ignorance. We've really solved most of the easy problems. The rest are sticky because the solutions are not straight forward. There isn't likely to ever be a pill or a shot that will cure cancer - but there will be increasingly effective regimens of treatment with fewer side effects (most new cancer drugs aren't cancer killers - they're drugs to fight the godawful side effects of the cancer killers).
But even with that said, it's pretty damn hard to find a cure if you're not looking for one.
If all of this really concerns you, I suggest donating to a non-profit group which does fund research aimed toward cures and not just treatments. There's a lot of them out there. You can also contribute CPU time toward Folding@Home or the UD Cancer Research projects, both of which are non-profit.
Drug companies have 20 years from the filing of patent to have exclusive rights to the drug. After going through NDA and FDA approvals the average drug gets 7 years on the market
A question for you, which you may not know - why so long? Yes, you have to do both animal and human testing during that period, but why is it taking (on average) 13 years to do all of this? As I understand it, the standard human testing period is 1 year. I don't know about animal testing, but I'd guess it's about a year as well. Even giving an additional year to do analysis on those tests, that's only 3 years. Does all the governmental approval really eat up another decade?
As I understand it the current program running on the UD: Cancer project (LigandFitII says my install) will not be used for for-profit purposes. Future projects utilizing the clients could be used for for-profit ventures, but UD has stated that you'll be able to opt out of those when the time comes.
I did do some checking on this prior to installing the software, and was adequately pleased with what I found. I know too many people who have died or suffered from cancer, and I worked on an oncology ward in high school. Frankly, helping cure cancer is a hell of a lot more important to me than finding an encryption key, and to some extent I don't mind if a company does profit off my CPU cycles in this case.
In all reality, if a drug company found an actual cure for one of the more common forms of cancer (and not just another chemo drug), then they wouldn't be able to pull Viagra-like profits from it. Drug patents have been assumed by governments before (most recent cases involved various HIV drug regimens and some South American countries) when it was deemed in the public interest. The actual cost to manufacture pills is in the pennies and usually does not require multi billion dollar infrastructures (merely tens of millions), so it's pretty hard for a drug company to stop someone from manufacturing a drug regardless of who technically owns the patent.