The article seemed old quotes mixed with the writers speculations, blended with a healthy helping of flamebait.
From TFA:
In 2003, Microsoft executives sat down to assess what the company should do with all those patents.... [snip]
At the same time, Smith was having Microsoft's lawyers figure out how many of its patents were being infringed by free and open-source software. Gutierrez refuses to identify specific patents or explain how they're being infringed, lest FOSS advocates start filing challenges to them.
But he does break down the total number allegedly violated - 235 - into categories.
This REALLY sounds like the 235 number was disclosed in 2003, or at least counted in 2003. Later, the article mostly references the events surrounding the Novell/Microsoft patent deal. I didn't really see anything that smelled like news in that article.
Then again, this is/., where the word "Microsoft" is Pavlov's bell to many of the readers here so it's no surprise the story made the front page;)
Right click on the desktop, choose Personalize. On the left, choose "Change Font Size (DPI)".
Applications that are DPI-aware will scale their fonts to match Vista's setting. For those that are not DPI-aware, Vista will scale it for you. The downside is that if Vista has to scale a small font up to meet your DPI, then it will look fuzzy.
On the other hand, Firefox 2 went a couple weeks between RC1 and RC2. Make a comparison in scale for Firefox versus Vista, and then comparing a couple weeks to a month doesn't seem like as big of a difference. Different companies have different ways of doing things - one persons RC2 is anothers Beta, and so on.
Really though, it's just semantics and marketing. Does it really matter whether it is called RC2 or Beta4 or Omega Omicron 53alpha? In the end, it's just a product that isn't quite ready for sale. I think it's a good thing to try to fix all the serious bugs they can before boxing it up and selling it.
[Disclaimer: I am a software developer (not Vista) with Microsoft, these comments are my own, and are supplied without warranty and with no rights conferred]
I find it very useful for the rare occasions that I get BSODs anymore to at least know what driver caused the problem. If the BSOD lists something like atixxxxx, then I know that my video card screwed up, and so on. Because almost all of my crashes are caused by driver or hardware problems, its helpful knowing just what that problem is so I can fix the driver or replace the hardware (and thus almost never get crashes on that computer in the future).
Very litte. Bethesda both developed and co-published Oblivion. 2K games also co-published Oblivion, and they are a subsidiary of Take Two, but I imagine they had very little to do with what the game actually included.
I just installed IE7 Beta 2 and the ONLY search option available was Google. No MSN search at all, just Google. Not sure what Google's problem with this is...
Your statements are too presumptuous. Not everyone lives in a city or suburb where all the roads are paved and you never have to deal with adverse conditions.
In Kansas, where a lot of my family lives, a majority of the roads there are gravel. I am sure this is the case in many other rural communities where it's simply not economical to pave roads, not even considering the added benefit of having gravel roads absorb moisture when irrigation overflows.
As for your second point, my car has ABS, but I do not know how to turn it off. I think ABS is great for the situations it is designed for, but it would be nice to have an easy way to turn it off, as well as having drivers educated about when to use it, as many slashdotters don't seem to fully understand the benefits and tradeoffs.
This is exactly the point of the OP who simply hoped that there was an easy way to turn off the traction control, as it is not always desirable.
As explained on Wikipedia, locked tires can stop you faster in low traction situations such as gravel, snow, and ice, because having the tires locked and sliding can have them "dig in" and create additional stopping force. Just looking at the theoretical static versus dynamic friction does not take into account all of the complex factors of the real world that we encounter.
An easy way to show this effect is to try to push something heavy through gravel: the gravel will gather up and the object will become harder and harder to push.
If you read the article (haha) you would have seen this:
The deal also asserts that Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 will be the exclusive gaming platforms for the PC and console for the events, meaning that other console titles for Sony or Nintendo platforms will not figure in the competitions.
Of course, you can't really expect them to provide anything else, as they are supplying all the hardware/software. Would you really expect them to buy Playstations?
If WCG didn't like the conditions, they didn't have to do the deal, that simple.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks leg-lengths per second is a misleading measure. Sure, the shorter robot has a better leg-lengths per second, but it's legs are shorter, so it's actually going slower in regular units/second.
And before someone says "but it has shorter legs, so you have to compensate", I will say this: Why not compensate for the fact that a longer leg means more torque is necessary to move it? All it takes is looking at humans: people with shorter legs tend to move their legs much faster than people with longer legs, but don't always end up moving faster.
Many adBlock filters look for the phrase "ad" or "ads". GMail uses a version ID for some reason in many of their URLs. In recent versions, they have had "ad" be part of the hexadecimal version ID, probably to prevent people from using adBlock. However, I just added GMail to the whitelist.
Speaking for myself as a gamer, it is not so much as being receptive to the ads as it is the fact that they are harder to block. Web page ads are easily blocked with adblock, but for an online game with ads, you would need to modify (hack) the client to get rid of them. Such hacking could be detected, and could result in you being banned, so we are just forced to deal with ads in games when they appear.
The article talks about how children overimitate and chimps don't imitate. I know you were joking, but I don't think this really changes much as humans grow older. Just look at the dot-com bubble: it was pretty much causes by too many people trying to imitate a few good ideas and people just generally going nuts. Anytime anyone does anything remotely innovative, it is imitated a thousand times it seems like. Imitation is just a part of human nature, which has evidentally helped us take over this planet.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
In 2003, Microsoft executives sat down to assess what the company should do with all those patents.
At the same time, Smith was having Microsoft's lawyers figure out how many of its patents were being infringed by free and open-source software. Gutierrez refuses to identify specific patents or explain how they're being infringed, lest FOSS advocates start filing challenges to them.
But he does break down the total number allegedly violated - 235 - into categories.
This REALLY sounds like the 235 number was disclosed in 2003, or at least counted in 2003. Later, the article mostly references the events surrounding the Novell/Microsoft patent deal. I didn't really see anything that smelled like news in that article.
Then again, this is
You can set a custom DPI in Vista.
Right click on the desktop, choose Personalize. On the left, choose "Change Font Size (DPI)".
Applications that are DPI-aware will scale their fonts to match Vista's setting. For those that are not DPI-aware, Vista will scale it for you. The downside is that if Vista has to scale a small font up to meet your DPI, then it will look fuzzy.
http://sixpop.com/images/images/83267365.gif
The article only measured people in the older age groups (50+). It would have been more thorough imo to measure all age groups.
Have you seen Windows Marketplace ? There are some old games on there ...
On the other hand, Firefox 2 went a couple weeks between RC1 and RC2. Make a comparison in scale for Firefox versus Vista, and then comparing a couple weeks to a month doesn't seem like as big of a difference. Different companies have different ways of doing things - one persons RC2 is anothers Beta, and so on.
Really though, it's just semantics and marketing. Does it really matter whether it is called RC2 or Beta4 or Omega Omicron 53alpha? In the end, it's just a product that isn't quite ready for sale. I think it's a good thing to try to fix all the serious bugs they can before boxing it up and selling it.
[Disclaimer: I am a software developer (not Vista) with Microsoft, these comments are my own, and are supplied without warranty and with no rights conferred]
Every single bug in it is the fault of the coders.
Unless the bug is a design flaw (and the coders didn't do the designing).
FYI, Flash memory IS Random Access Memory, and the nanos have way more than 1MB of it.
I find it very useful for the rare occasions that I get BSODs anymore to at least know what driver caused the problem. If the BSOD lists something like atixxxxx, then I know that my video card screwed up, and so on. Because almost all of my crashes are caused by driver or hardware problems, its helpful knowing just what that problem is so I can fix the driver or replace the hardware (and thus almost never get crashes on that computer in the future).
Vista is no longer, oh, I don't know, a beta product, and not even out yet?
... it is supposed to be a feature complete product that is tested for last minute bugs.
He was running RC1 - a release candidate is not a beta
"What does Take Two have to do with this?"
Very litte. Bethesda both developed and co-published Oblivion. 2K games also co-published Oblivion, and they are a subsidiary of Take Two, but I imagine they had very little to do with what the game actually included.
I just installed IE7 Beta 2 and the ONLY search option available was Google. No MSN search at all, just Google. Not sure what Google's problem with this is ...
How are buyers supposed to get their daily fix of Pintsize then????
"Both are currently slated for a November release, which further backs up Sony's insistence that the PS3 will launch in November"
Yea, and Oblivion was originally slated for release on the 360 for LAST November, but we all know how that ended up.
Your statements are too presumptuous. Not everyone lives in a city or suburb where all the roads are paved and you never have to deal with adverse conditions.
In Kansas, where a lot of my family lives, a majority of the roads there are gravel. I am sure this is the case in many other rural communities where it's simply not economical to pave roads, not even considering the added benefit of having gravel roads absorb moisture when irrigation overflows.
As for your second point, my car has ABS, but I do not know how to turn it off. I think ABS is great for the situations it is designed for, but it would be nice to have an easy way to turn it off, as well as having drivers educated about when to use it, as many slashdotters don't seem to fully understand the benefits and tradeoffs.
This is exactly the point of the OP who simply hoped that there was an easy way to turn off the traction control, as it is not always desirable.
As explained on Wikipedia, locked tires can stop you faster in low traction situations such as gravel, snow, and ice, because having the tires locked and sliding can have them "dig in" and create additional stopping force. Just looking at the theoretical static versus dynamic friction does not take into account all of the complex factors of the real world that we encounter.
An easy way to show this effect is to try to push something heavy through gravel: the gravel will gather up and the object will become harder and harder to push.
They aren't already mainstream?
Satoshi, meet sarcasm. Sarcasm, meet Satoshi.
If you read the article (haha) you would have seen this:
The deal also asserts that Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 will be the exclusive gaming platforms for the PC and console for the events, meaning that other console titles for Sony or Nintendo platforms will not figure in the competitions.
Of course, you can't really expect them to provide anything else, as they are supplying all the hardware/software. Would you really expect them to buy Playstations?
If WCG didn't like the conditions, they didn't have to do the deal, that simple.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks leg-lengths per second is a misleading measure. Sure, the shorter robot has a better leg-lengths per second, but it's legs are shorter, so it's actually going slower in regular units/second.
And before someone says "but it has shorter legs, so you have to compensate", I will say this: Why not compensate for the fact that a longer leg means more torque is necessary to move it? All it takes is looking at humans: people with shorter legs tend to move their legs much faster than people with longer legs, but don't always end up moving faster.
Is this feature new?
Many adBlock filters look for the phrase "ad" or "ads". GMail uses a version ID for some reason in many of their URLs. In recent versions, they have had "ad" be part of the hexadecimal version ID, probably to prevent people from using adBlock. However, I just added GMail to the whitelist.
The difference is he was attacking the servers - the point of disabling ActiveX is to protect yourself as the client.
Speaking for myself as a gamer, it is not so much as being receptive to the ads as it is the fact that they are harder to block. Web page ads are easily blocked with adblock, but for an online game with ads, you would need to modify (hack) the client to get rid of them. Such hacking could be detected, and could result in you being banned, so we are just forced to deal with ads in games when they appear.
The article talks about how children overimitate and chimps don't imitate. I know you were joking, but I don't think this really changes much as humans grow older. Just look at the dot-com bubble: it was pretty much causes by too many people trying to imitate a few good ideas and people just generally going nuts. Anytime anyone does anything remotely innovative, it is imitated a thousand times it seems like. Imitation is just a part of human nature, which has evidentally helped us take over this planet.
I wasn't aware that using an encrypted connection was illegal ...