Microsoft is the suxx0rz.
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Browser Wars 2004
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· Score: -1, Flamebait
See if you don't agree...
Nope. I certainly don't.:-)
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Actually, I hope Apple, Mozilla, and most of all, Opera, my favorite, kick Microsoft's ass back into the stone age where it belongs. And furthermore, I hope that OpenOffice exceeds MS Office applications, like Microsoft Turd, to take market share away from them in that one of their crown jewels. To this end, OpenOffice needs to run natively on the Mac. That is, it should not require the UNIX compatibility stuff to run. And I hope that Linux and other free OSes put the final nail in the coffin by taking Windows away from that horrible company. If Microsoft becomes "just another software company", a single player in a market driven by many players, then I won't mind them so much.
But in the meantime, I put my money where my mouth is by paying for competing software, like Opera.
When are you Spaniards going to realize that it's spelled Don Quixote, the way it's intended, not Don Quijote, and Mexico isn't spelled Mejico either. Get used to it.
in order to make an indecency complaint about a broadcast you have to provide "a significant excerpt from the program or a full or partial tape or transcript of the program
Of course, you cannot legally videotape anything because you would be violating the DMCA, you know, because of that do not copy bit or whatever. So, yeah. I think they should do this:
1. Make a law that everybody must keep videotape copies of everything they watch on television.
2. On the same page, make a law that makes it illegal to videotape anything you watch.
3. Make a law that law enforcement personnel from the MPAA can come to your home or business at any time to audit your videotapes. If they find that you videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. If they find that you do not videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. Then, MPAA law enforcement officials can select random houses to obtain them and the property therein. That would slightly offset the drastically horrendous effects of movie piracy, which sends many people to the theaters because the pirated version looks like shit and they want to see it in the theater to enjoy the full effect of the movie, which they might not otherwise have bothered to go see.
This technology would also ease OS upgrades or eliminate the pain coming from a hard disk failure. The project has even a feature named Rollback which would permit to go back in time, eliminating these pesky viruses.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." --Linus Torvalds
My brother, who works on chipset R&D at Intel, says this "artificial" limit is there because of spikes. These are the same spikes that appear in electrical current that are the reason for debouncing all digital inputs to a computer. As it turns out, there are certain spikes that exist at a range above 533 mhz. The chipset will work at the higher speed, but these spikes in the electric current will occasionally cause a bit to go the wrong way, if the clock cycle occurs exactly when a spike is going through the line. For this reason, it is going to take Intel a little longer to clean the signals at the higher clock speed, and therefore they cannot offer 667 at this time.
Incidentally, my brother also says that Intel would be at a great advantage over its competitors if it could offer the 667 mhz, so it is clearly not hiding an existing feature to milk the market. The spikes are the reason.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
It is for reasons like this that I have so much respect for a great president like Ronald Reagan, who, when he survived a bullet that came within an inch of his heart, decided that God wanted him to live for a reason, and he took charge and got rid of the Soviet Union. It's only too bad that Communism continues to exist in China and a few other places in the world.
Look at where they are, with their system based on violence, lies, and fear, and look at where we are, with our system based on freedom and personal responsibility.
Communism is the suxx0rz, and I think that as Americans, we should continue fighting it by refusing to send products, services, or business over there until they fall apart and become a system based on the premise that the individual is more important than some state, an entity of people in power who take advantage of it to enslave the individual, the way that China enslaves and polices its people.
I have an idea. How about, instead of predicting traffic jams and then working around them, let's find all those StupidPeople, with no place to go and all day to get there, who drive too damn slow on the road when there is NO REASON to do so, like going 50 in a 65 when there are NO cars ahead of them for 10 miles, and if there are 3 lanes on the road, then you can rest assured that three such StupidPeople will find each other and drive side-by-side, too slowly, when the whole world is behind them trying to get to where it's going; how about, let's find all those StupidPeople, take away their licenses to drive, and then we can enjoy the road when it's moving along at the correct speed, as opposed to crawling along, making a 20 minute drive into a 2 hour one, and using up eight times the quantity of gasoline, which costs way too much.
I was going to suggest shooting the StupidPeople, but that is a somewhat mean thing to do.
He must have been using the word Java to denote "coffee" rather than a particular computer program. If so, then I suppose he is right, because there's nothing better after a night of drinking too much alcohol than a little bit of coffee to clear up your head.
I am not surprised that Microsoft's development happens in this way. Yeah... Windows and IE contain so many bugs that hook 'em up to the 'net and within 2 seconds, you're 0wn3d. But MS doesn't give a fuck because they have to show the shareholders that they have eternally perpetually exponentially increasing profits.
So the whole world has to suffer with the garbage this monopoly creates and overcharges for.
Violating their patents, eh? Seagate drives are pieces of shit anyway. Every time I installed Seagate somewhere, data loss resulted. Garbage. I haven't bought their shit in years.
Try Western Digital, Maxtor, Quantum, Conner... anything you want... just DON'T buy Seagate.
Seagate... See the gate on your way out after picking up a check.
Screw the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, and AOL/Time Warner. Also, screw DVD, because it sucks. Those jerks want to tell me what to do with my stuff? They want to beam that garbage programming of theirs into MY house? Then they can afford to let me videotape it so I can watch it when I want to, as opposed to on their schedule. Those sons of witches.
You can say whatever you want about piracy. Many people say, "Oh, but it is theft to copy blah blah blah," like when they're talking about videotaping something in movie theaters. Yes, it's theft... but what's the bigger theft over here? I say it's the copyright holders being allowed to become my Big Brother, watching my every move like I'm a criminal, deemed guilty until proven innocent, even without a chance to prove myself innocent.
The people who think videotaping a movie in the theater is theft just don't understand that the legislation doesn't stop there. It starts there.
Yesterday, we were at point A. At point A, you could videotape a movie off television to watch it later. I have a few movies that were recorded in this way. And you could also make copies of videotapes if you wanted to, though the copies didn't come out perfectly, but it was ok anyway. Then, the movie industry came up with DVD, and all its stupid region coding and CSS and other bullshit, so while it is possible to make a perfect copy of a movie, they have made it difficult to do. They have put together a system that is deliberately crippled. So now, we're at point B. Next, they're gonna make it so you can't record television, when YOU pay taxes and/or the cable/satellite companies for the priveledge of viewing that shit. So, we'll be at point C. Then, they'll make it impossible to view anything on TV, when you pay your taxes and cable fees, without paying an ADDITIONAL pay-per-view fee, and you won't be able to record it for later use. Then, we'll be at point D. Then, they'll increase the price. And increase it more. And increase it more. Then, we'll be at point E. Then, they'll do like Microsoft and update the television signals every two years, so you have to replace your perfectly good television with a new one, or else you won't be able to watch most broadcasts. Then, we'll be at point F.
Look at the damage that copyright law is doing to our society. Back in the day, when copyright actually EXPIRED after a few years, a lot of good books were published, everything from literature to technical books. For example, you can get a copy of Moby Dick printed by any number of publishers, or you can find it on on project Gutenberg. The author is long gone, who gives a damn if you copy his book. Who would give a damn if you did 20 years after he wrote it... you can't write one book and expect to live off it until the end of your days. What the hell kind of contribution to society is that in exchange for a monopoly on a work? There were also a lot of really good technical books published. They're long out of print, but you can buy brand new copies, actually facsimile copies of the original books, professionally printed and newly bound. These books are PRICELESS. They contain information that you simply cannot find anymore, since automation and computers have taken over a lot of the tasks that were once done by people, very, very smart people who were experts and craftsmen at what they did. Books that explain things like gears. Look in any modern book on gears and you won't find Jack Schitt on how they work or why things are done a certain way. But luckily, their copyright expired ages ago, and the books can be reproduced. What if their copyright had not expired? What if the great great grand children still had rights on that information? I can almost promise you that 99% of those works would have disappeared into oblivion, the copies being damaged, destroyed, or just plain thrown away one by one, until none, or nearly none, were left. And if God forbid anything should happen to the world that will leave us without the technology that does so much for us today, that information, which would
They mentioned "Smart Folders", a feature that in BeOS was called a Query. You could set up a query, which is basically a search that looks through filenames and attributes (meta-data), and I don't remember if you could search through the file itself, too, but you could save these things as a query, they behaved just like directories, except that their contents would update live based on other events in the file system.
And that was a very extremely useful feature of BeOS. I'm glad the idea lives on in Tiger.
Oh yeah, and the under-the-hood shit they mentioned like ACLs is pretty exciting.
I hope you can access their "smart folders" as directories on the file system. That would make it possible to script all kinds of crazy and weird shit. Hell yeah.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. Their automator thing looks pretty awesome. Drag a bunch of events from a library of events into the damn thing, set some damn parameters, and you can save that setup if you want... it's kind of like scripting, but without any scripting syntax. Smart... very friggen smart.
A small Israeli company has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters.
You might have to use a radar detector before having sex.
I don't understand how anybody can support this open source philosophy. The way I see it, the only good software is commercial proprietary closed source software. There is no possible way that a group of geeks who communicate through IRC and have never met each other can outdo in open source what professional masters degree programmers wearing fancy suits working in fancy office buildings and advertising on glossy sales brochures can do in their pristine closed environment.
Besides, all open source is simply a bad immitation of quality proprietary software. Take Windows, for example. Here you have a fine operating system, with beautiful graphics, a great web browsing experience, great support for collaboration, and a widely installed base. On the other hand, you have the open source Linux, which is hard to obtain, hard to install, hard to configure, hard to learn, hard to use, and hard to teach. Its graphics aren't as nice, either. Not to mention that the TCO of Windows is much lower than that of Linux. You can do with $100 more with Windows than you could ever do with Linux for that price. Linux is only cheaper if you don't value your time. Clearly, then, proprietary closed source patented copyrighted trademarked software with digital rights management, copy protection, and forced registration is a much better choice over open source, which is really crappy.
I just listened to this, and I can tell you that it sounds totally like crap. Here at home, I have a sound room with a bitchen 100% analog system... Vacuum tube amplifiers, gold wiring, the works. I play my records on this thing and they have that wonderful warm sound. But this 32 kps sound sounds like garbage.
Why in the world would you want to donate stuff to a hostile territory like Uganda? We have plenty of problems here in North America that could be solved by donating a laptop to a good cause. Heck, instead of sending that thing to Uganda, why not try to help a needy family here in the U.S., or send it to Mexico, where many people live in the trash (I'm from an area like that).
And even if you want to support another country, don't go supporting a crappy, shitty, garbagey place like Uganda. Because Uganda is a crappy, shitty, garbagey place. We should send tanks over there to blow things up, not laptops to help them.
It'll be flippin' hysterical when this happens to the Social Security system. Nine digits can only handle one billion folks. Plus, the numbering system is set up to detect certain combinations as counterfeit, so quite a few thousands of numbers cannot be used. Start this system in the '30's, and with about 300 million folks in the U.S. right now, and about 60 million back then, say in four or five generations (which will be up by 20 or 30 years from now), the Social Security system will run out of numbers and will have to be changed. Try to track down the obscure systems everywhere--in colleges and universities, all medical clinics and hospitals, all banks and financial institutions, all credit card and loan companies, all employers... basically all software that uses that retarded number to identify people... What a mess that will be.
It serves 'em right, though. I'm against the whole idea of using that number as an ID number for people. It's an account number as far as I'm concerned. There shouldn't be any kind of national ID in this country...
Well, this is a pretty serious situation, but slightly different than the Y2K problem. First of all, most of the software affected by Y2K was written in COBOL and ran on all kinds of mainframes. These were the kind of computers that had been programmed and debugged at one point in the past, and were eventually made to work flawlessly. They ran so well that the companies using them almost forgot they existed. When Y2K started approaching, it was suddenly necessary to dig up a bunch of really old systems, for many of which the documentation, or even the source code, was missing. Imagine having to re-create programming that had existed for years, just to keep date records correct. This was a huge expense for many organizations. The Y2K problem, however, only affected the kind of software that used 2 characters to store the date. Most programming done since the 80's, or even a bit earlier than that, uses integers to keep track of the date, and there are different dates that these things will roll over. So they are not affected by Y2K per se, but by a similar problem that will affect various systems from time to time.
On the other hand, the VIN problem will affect a larger number of computers than the Y2K problem. There are, of course, the few big manufacturers, who keep track of parts and whatnot. There are thousands of dealers, and perhaps tens of thousands of auto repair facilities. Then, of course, there are all the governments around the world that keep track of auto registration. All of these locations use VIN numbers in various ways, be it for record keeping, tracing design decisions and parts, locating parts for repairs, etc. Now imagine that all of these locations, some very big, and some very small, need new programming because of a change to the VIN system. And this change will affect all of these locations at the same time, not from time to time as with date rollover problems. Further, most auto repair facilities use computers and programming that they obtained years ago, and who knows if the software vendor is even around anymore. The source code is probably long gone for many of these applications.
The problem is that the VIN numbers are being used up as new vehicles are being manufactured. When the last VIN is gone, all of these systems will have to be up to date for the change, and that means a lot of money spent on new computers, new programming, and whatever trouble it takes to convert old records to the new system, which will have to be backwardly compatible with the old VIN numbering system.
Let this be a lesson: Whenever a unique number is needed, let's use about 40 digits in a base 36 system, consisting of letters and numbers. That'll cover us for a while.
Next thing you know, Knoppix will fit on one of these, with about 120 gigs of programs, development environments, complete source code, and a few free (libre) movies, songs, photos, clipart, and other media to boot... And it will only take a month to download!
Like I've written time and time again, I believe the solution to the micropayments problem is very simple. It should work something like this:
There are three parties to a micropayment transaction:
The party receiving the money.
The bank, credit card company, or other intermediate party facilitating the transaction.
The party paying the money.
The way it works is relatively simple. Party 3 does something which requires a micropayment. This could be $1.00, $0.10, or $0.001. Either way, the procedure is the same:
When the transaction takes place, a record goes into a database on Party 1's side, showing that a certain amount is expected to be collected. Party 1 would only have to keep track of the total amount it expects to collect from each Party 2 it uses to facilitate transactions. Therefore, it would not take tremendous resources on Party 1's part to keep track of an enormous number of tiny transactions. If Party 1 uses 4 different Party 2 providers, it would only have to keep track of those 4 numbers. Party 1 could elect to keep track of each individual transaction for real-time management purposes, but this would take tremendous resources and expenses.
Two records go into a database on Party 2's side. The first shows that an amount is being collected from a certain Party 3. The second shows that an amount is being paid to a certain Party 1. Because Party 2 facilitates the transaction, it does business with many Party 1's and many Party 3's, so each of these two records would point to the other for reporting purposes. Party 2 would need an enormous storage system and enterprise class databases to keep track of this information. Also, the database would need to organize the information hierarchically so that Party 1 or Party 3 could log in and see a list of all transactions they are paying or receiving, and to/from whom. Party 1 and Party 3 would need to trust Party 2, but micropayments are small, so the risk of error is in the 10's of dollars.
Party 3 could receive an electronic statement of total amounts paid to each Party 1 with whom Party 3 did business. This would probably cost extra, so Party 3 could elect to receive a cumulative total for all transactions less than a certain amount, say, $0.10, and individual records for all transactions above that value.
Finally, here are the mechanics of the micropayments: Party 3 sets up a maximum amount of micropayments being made in any period of time before a special notification occurs to authorize additional micropayments. Suppose this amount is $30.00 in any 30 day period. Immediately, Party 2 would receive the $30.00 through an electronic transfer from Party 3's bank account or credit card. These $30.00 go into a huge pot of all money Party 2 is holding on deposit from all Party 3's. As time goes by, Party 3 does things that cause transactions to take place. Party 2 knows the total amount it, Party 2, not Party 3, owes to each Party 1, and the total amount still on deposit by each Party 3. These two values are kept track of separately. When the amount owed to a Party 1 exceeds a certain value, say, $100.00, or whatever Party 2 decides based on the level of service Party 1 elects, that amount is electronically transferred from Party 2's big pot to Party 1's bank account. When a micropayment transaction takes place, essentially only two things happen: A numeric value is incremented in each Party 1's account, and decremented in each Party 3's account.
Party 3 does not pay anything for these services. Party 1 may or may not pay depending on the terms of its agreement with Party 2. Party 2 makes a profit by earning interest on the $30.00 that it is holding in advance, and the $100.00 that it does not pay until that amount is reached.
I suppose there should be a rather simple solution to the A->B->D, A->C->D problem, when a newer version of C is loaded, when an older version of D is already loaded in the address space.
Windows should keep track, in a graph of some sort, the relationships between all DLLs. This would also help with the problems created by installing and uninstalling various software.
When a newer version of a DLL is installed, the dependancy graph could be analyzed to figure out if any running program is affected. If so, the OS could notify the user to shut down the program first, or offer the option of letting all installation changes remain "hidden" until the next reboot.
Let's write to Congress and suggest a law covering necessary commercial software--that is:
Software that costs, say, $40.00 or more to license,
does NOT fall under a free/open compliant license, making it possible for the user to audit the code WITHOUT paying additional fees for access to a human-readable, non-shrouded copy of the code,
and which is required for the performance of personal or business goals.
It would NOT cover software selling for less than $40.00, and would NOT cover strictly frivolous and unnecessary software such as games, pr0n software, purely eye-candy software, and other things not necessary to earn one's living or to generate business revenues. (Yeah yeah, game testers, but the definition of a software tester is one who takes the risk of losing data or opening oneself up to security flaws in the testing of software, so that would not apply either.) It would not cover scripts or other code that is human readable. It would not cover software used under a license provided for evaluation, such as a shareware license, or try-before-you-buy, when the damage occured before licensing said software for the $40.00 or more license fee. Basically use your common sense and figure out what I'm trying to say here.
Microsoft and all the other vendors out there would be forced to either:
Reduce the price of their software to $39.95, or...
Make their software bulletproof to avoid getting the shit sued out of them.
Of course, you'd have to prove actual damages, and that the software in question is at fault for the damage--that is, that the damage would not have occured but for the existance of a flaw in the software. So if your RAM is fucked and a bit goes stray and the damn thing writes over your database because of that, you're fucked, not the software maker.
Now, how in the fuck do you avoid frivolous lawsuits? Hmmmm... Maybe just make the law apply to Microsoft and to nobody else.
Eh... That would damage the paint, as the dust particles would be pushed into and rubbed against the paint, leaving many tiny scratches that, when viewed at certain angles in the sunlight, would reveal the message written there even years after the vehicle had been washed. For that reason, astute readers would notice that doing so would not fall under the criteria: if these materials do not damage the surface being cleaned, which I had stated in my original post.
You, my friend, are obviously not an astute reader.:-) (I've always wondered, when someone writes, "Astute readers will notice blah," when I didn't notice the thing described, if I am to take it as an insult that I am not an astute reader.)
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Nope. I certainly don't. :-)
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Actually, I hope Apple, Mozilla, and most of all, Opera, my favorite, kick Microsoft's ass back into the stone age where it belongs. And furthermore, I hope that OpenOffice exceeds MS Office applications, like Microsoft Turd, to take market share away from them in that one of their crown jewels. To this end, OpenOffice needs to run natively on the Mac. That is, it should not require the UNIX compatibility stuff to run. And I hope that Linux and other free OSes put the final nail in the coffin by taking Windows away from that horrible company. If Microsoft becomes "just another software company", a single player in a market driven by many players, then I won't mind them so much.
But in the meantime, I put my money where my mouth is by paying for competing software, like Opera.
Microsoft. Where do you want to pay today?
When are you Spaniards going to realize that it's spelled Don Quixote, the way it's intended, not Don Quijote, and Mexico isn't spelled Mejico either. Get used to it.
Of course, you cannot legally videotape anything because you would be violating the DMCA, you know, because of that do not copy bit or whatever. So, yeah. I think they should do this:
1. Make a law that everybody must keep videotape copies of everything they watch on television.
2. On the same page, make a law that makes it illegal to videotape anything you watch.
3. Make a law that law enforcement personnel from the MPAA can come to your home or business at any time to audit your videotapes. If they find that you videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. If they find that you do not videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. Then, MPAA law enforcement officials can select random houses to obtain them and the property therein. That would slightly offset the drastically horrendous effects of movie piracy, which sends many people to the theaters because the pirated version looks like shit and they want to see it in the theater to enjoy the full effect of the movie, which they might not otherwise have bothered to go see.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it."
--Linus Torvalds
Need I say any more?
Incidentally, my brother also says that Intel would be at a great advantage over its competitors if it could offer the 667 mhz, so it is clearly not hiding an existing feature to milk the market. The spikes are the reason.
Indian? Do you mean Indian as in Injun Joe, or Indian as in where all our jobs are going?
I'm thoroughly confused.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
It is for reasons like this that I have so much respect for a great president like Ronald Reagan, who, when he survived a bullet that came within an inch of his heart, decided that God wanted him to live for a reason, and he took charge and got rid of the Soviet Union. It's only too bad that Communism continues to exist in China and a few other places in the world.
Look at where they are, with their system based on violence, lies, and fear, and look at where we are, with our system based on freedom and personal responsibility.
Communism is the suxx0rz, and I think that as Americans, we should continue fighting it by refusing to send products, services, or business over there until they fall apart and become a system based on the premise that the individual is more important than some state, an entity of people in power who take advantage of it to enslave the individual, the way that China enslaves and polices its people.
Yes, America can!
I was going to suggest shooting the StupidPeople, but that is a somewhat mean thing to do.
Sun Microsystems. Where do you want to go today?
So the whole world has to suffer with the garbage this monopoly creates and overcharges for.
Try Western Digital, Maxtor, Quantum, Conner... anything you want... just DON'T buy Seagate.
Seagate... See the gate on your way out after picking up a check.
You can say whatever you want about piracy. Many people say, "Oh, but it is theft to copy blah blah blah," like when they're talking about videotaping something in movie theaters. Yes, it's theft... but what's the bigger theft over here? I say it's the copyright holders being allowed to become my Big Brother, watching my every move like I'm a criminal, deemed guilty until proven innocent, even without a chance to prove myself innocent.
The people who think videotaping a movie in the theater is theft just don't understand that the legislation doesn't stop there. It starts there.
Yesterday, we were at point A. At point A, you could videotape a movie off television to watch it later. I have a few movies that were recorded in this way. And you could also make copies of videotapes if you wanted to, though the copies didn't come out perfectly, but it was ok anyway. Then, the movie industry came up with DVD, and all its stupid region coding and CSS and other bullshit, so while it is possible to make a perfect copy of a movie, they have made it difficult to do. They have put together a system that is deliberately crippled. So now, we're at point B. Next, they're gonna make it so you can't record television, when YOU pay taxes and/or the cable/satellite companies for the priveledge of viewing that shit. So, we'll be at point C. Then, they'll make it impossible to view anything on TV, when you pay your taxes and cable fees, without paying an ADDITIONAL pay-per-view fee, and you won't be able to record it for later use. Then, we'll be at point D. Then, they'll increase the price. And increase it more. And increase it more. Then, we'll be at point E. Then, they'll do like Microsoft and update the television signals every two years, so you have to replace your perfectly good television with a new one, or else you won't be able to watch most broadcasts. Then, we'll be at point F.
Look at the damage that copyright law is doing to our society. Back in the day, when copyright actually EXPIRED after a few years, a lot of good books were published, everything from literature to technical books. For example, you can get a copy of Moby Dick printed by any number of publishers, or you can find it on on project Gutenberg. The author is long gone, who gives a damn if you copy his book. Who would give a damn if you did 20 years after he wrote it... you can't write one book and expect to live off it until the end of your days. What the hell kind of contribution to society is that in exchange for a monopoly on a work? There were also a lot of really good technical books published. They're long out of print, but you can buy brand new copies, actually facsimile copies of the original books, professionally printed and newly bound. These books are PRICELESS. They contain information that you simply cannot find anymore, since automation and computers have taken over a lot of the tasks that were once done by people, very, very smart people who were experts and craftsmen at what they did. Books that explain things like gears. Look in any modern book on gears and you won't find Jack Schitt on how they work or why things are done a certain way. But luckily, their copyright expired ages ago, and the books can be reproduced. What if their copyright had not expired? What if the great great grand children still had rights on that information? I can almost promise you that 99% of those works would have disappeared into oblivion, the copies being damaged, destroyed, or just plain thrown away one by one, until none, or nearly none, were left. And if God forbid anything should happen to the world that will leave us without the technology that does so much for us today, that information, which would
And that was a very extremely useful feature of BeOS. I'm glad the idea lives on in Tiger.
Oh yeah, and the under-the-hood shit they mentioned like ACLs is pretty exciting.
I hope you can access their "smart folders" as directories on the file system. That would make it possible to script all kinds of crazy and weird shit. Hell yeah.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. Their automator thing looks pretty awesome. Drag a bunch of events from a library of events into the damn thing, set some damn parameters, and you can save that setup if you want... it's kind of like scripting, but without any scripting syntax. Smart... very friggen smart.
Oooooooooooooooooooooh well.
You might have to use a radar detector before having sex.
Unless this kind of thing turns you on.
Besides, all open source is simply a bad immitation of quality proprietary software. Take Windows, for example. Here you have a fine operating system, with beautiful graphics, a great web browsing experience, great support for collaboration, and a widely installed base. On the other hand, you have the open source Linux, which is hard to obtain, hard to install, hard to configure, hard to learn, hard to use, and hard to teach. Its graphics aren't as nice, either. Not to mention that the TCO of Windows is much lower than that of Linux. You can do with $100 more with Windows than you could ever do with Linux for that price. Linux is only cheaper if you don't value your time. Clearly, then, proprietary closed source patented copyrighted trademarked software with digital rights management, copy protection, and forced registration is a much better choice over open source, which is really crappy.
Winners always choose closed source.
Sincerely,
Bill Gates.
I just listened to this, and I can tell you that it sounds totally like crap. Here at home, I have a sound room with a bitchen 100% analog system... Vacuum tube amplifiers, gold wiring, the works. I play my records on this thing and they have that wonderful warm sound. But this 32 kps sound sounds like garbage.
And even if you want to support another country, don't go supporting a crappy, shitty, garbagey place like Uganda. Because Uganda is a crappy, shitty, garbagey place. We should send tanks over there to blow things up, not laptops to help them.
Uganda. Where do you want to go today?
It serves 'em right, though. I'm against the whole idea of using that number as an ID number for people. It's an account number as far as I'm concerned. There shouldn't be any kind of national ID in this country...
On the other hand, the VIN problem will affect a larger number of computers than the Y2K problem. There are, of course, the few big manufacturers, who keep track of parts and whatnot. There are thousands of dealers, and perhaps tens of thousands of auto repair facilities. Then, of course, there are all the governments around the world that keep track of auto registration. All of these locations use VIN numbers in various ways, be it for record keeping, tracing design decisions and parts, locating parts for repairs, etc. Now imagine that all of these locations, some very big, and some very small, need new programming because of a change to the VIN system. And this change will affect all of these locations at the same time, not from time to time as with date rollover problems. Further, most auto repair facilities use computers and programming that they obtained years ago, and who knows if the software vendor is even around anymore. The source code is probably long gone for many of these applications.
The problem is that the VIN numbers are being used up as new vehicles are being manufactured. When the last VIN is gone, all of these systems will have to be up to date for the change, and that means a lot of money spent on new computers, new programming, and whatever trouble it takes to convert old records to the new system, which will have to be backwardly compatible with the old VIN numbering system.
Let this be a lesson: Whenever a unique number is needed, let's use about 40 digits in a base 36 system, consisting of letters and numbers. That'll cover us for a while.
fuck
Next thing you know, Knoppix will fit on one of these, with about 120 gigs of programs, development environments, complete source code, and a few free (libre) movies, songs, photos, clipart, and other media to boot... And it will only take a month to download!
There are three parties to a micropayment transaction:
- The party receiving the money.
- The bank, credit card company, or other intermediate party facilitating the transaction.
- The party paying the money.
The way it works is relatively simple. Party 3 does something which requires a micropayment. This could be $1.00, $0.10, or $0.001. Either way, the procedure is the same:When the transaction takes place, a record goes into a database on Party 1's side, showing that a certain amount is expected to be collected. Party 1 would only have to keep track of the total amount it expects to collect from each Party 2 it uses to facilitate transactions. Therefore, it would not take tremendous resources on Party 1's part to keep track of an enormous number of tiny transactions. If Party 1 uses 4 different Party 2 providers, it would only have to keep track of those 4 numbers. Party 1 could elect to keep track of each individual transaction for real-time management purposes, but this would take tremendous resources and expenses.
Two records go into a database on Party 2's side. The first shows that an amount is being collected from a certain Party 3. The second shows that an amount is being paid to a certain Party 1. Because Party 2 facilitates the transaction, it does business with many Party 1's and many Party 3's, so each of these two records would point to the other for reporting purposes. Party 2 would need an enormous storage system and enterprise class databases to keep track of this information. Also, the database would need to organize the information hierarchically so that Party 1 or Party 3 could log in and see a list of all transactions they are paying or receiving, and to/from whom. Party 1 and Party 3 would need to trust Party 2, but micropayments are small, so the risk of error is in the 10's of dollars.
Party 3 could receive an electronic statement of total amounts paid to each Party 1 with whom Party 3 did business. This would probably cost extra, so Party 3 could elect to receive a cumulative total for all transactions less than a certain amount, say, $0.10, and individual records for all transactions above that value.
Finally, here are the mechanics of the micropayments: Party 3 sets up a maximum amount of micropayments being made in any period of time before a special notification occurs to authorize additional micropayments. Suppose this amount is $30.00 in any 30 day period. Immediately, Party 2 would receive the $30.00 through an electronic transfer from Party 3's bank account or credit card. These $30.00 go into a huge pot of all money Party 2 is holding on deposit from all Party 3's. As time goes by, Party 3 does things that cause transactions to take place. Party 2 knows the total amount it, Party 2, not Party 3, owes to each Party 1, and the total amount still on deposit by each Party 3. These two values are kept track of separately. When the amount owed to a Party 1 exceeds a certain value, say, $100.00, or whatever Party 2 decides based on the level of service Party 1 elects, that amount is electronically transferred from Party 2's big pot to Party 1's bank account. When a micropayment transaction takes place, essentially only two things happen: A numeric value is incremented in each Party 1's account, and decremented in each Party 3's account.
Party 3 does not pay anything for these services. Party 1 may or may not pay depending on the terms of its agreement with Party 2. Party 2 makes a profit by earning interest on the $30.00 that it is holding in advance, and the $100.00 that it does not pay until that amount is reached.
Windows should keep track, in a graph of some sort, the relationships between all DLLs. This would also help with the problems created by installing and uninstalling various software.
When a newer version of a DLL is installed, the dependancy graph could be analyzed to figure out if any running program is affected. If so, the OS could notify the user to shut down the program first, or offer the option of letting all installation changes remain "hidden" until the next reboot.
- Software that costs, say, $40.00 or more to license,
- does NOT fall under a free/open compliant license, making it possible for the user to audit the code WITHOUT paying additional fees for access to a human-readable, non-shrouded copy of the code,
- and which is required for the performance of personal or business goals.
It would NOT cover software selling for less than $40.00, and would NOT cover strictly frivolous and unnecessary software such as games, pr0n software, purely eye-candy software, and other things not necessary to earn one's living or to generate business revenues. (Yeah yeah, game testers, but the definition of a software tester is one who takes the risk of losing data or opening oneself up to security flaws in the testing of software, so that would not apply either.) It would not cover scripts or other code that is human readable. It would not cover software used under a license provided for evaluation, such as a shareware license, or try-before-you-buy, when the damage occured before licensing said software for the $40.00 or more license fee. Basically use your common sense and figure out what I'm trying to say here.Microsoft and all the other vendors out there would be forced to either:
- Reduce the price of their software to $39.95, or...
- Make their software bulletproof to avoid getting the shit sued out of them.
Of course, you'd have to prove actual damages, and that the software in question is at fault for the damage--that is, that the damage would not have occured but for the existance of a flaw in the software. So if your RAM is fucked and a bit goes stray and the damn thing writes over your database because of that, you're fucked, not the software maker.Now, how in the fuck do you avoid frivolous lawsuits? Hmmmm... Maybe just make the law apply to Microsoft and to nobody else.
You, my friend, are obviously not an astute reader. :-) (I've always wondered, when someone writes, "Astute readers will notice blah," when I didn't notice the thing described, if I am to take it as an insult that I am not an astute reader.)