Ok, I can understand the dislike of the bashing that goes on around here. My biggest concern when people think that SP2 is a cure-all is that many people are on 2000 (or earlier, sadly), and can't get SP2 without making the investment in licensing *and* application testing to move to XP. I have a client that uses a construction management software piece that doesn't work under XP unless you jump through some absurd hoops with file permissions (and then it is still crippled: looking forward to a patch *eventually*). I have another client who is upgrading to XP with new boxes, but won't eliminate the last 2000 machine for another year or so. Neither of these are going to be protected by SP2.
Personally, the latter case (slow phase out) annoys me, but all I can do is advise the client and try to keep them as productive as possible. So when something doesn't affect SP2, that is wonderful... for those who are there. Sadly, I still have to work with clients who barely left NT4 because no updates were available.
Yes, perhaps I should get better clients, but I like my side work overall and really *don't* see 2000 as "depreciated" yet, so I can't beat them up *too* much.
About 70% of your users are vulnerable and you don't see it as "newsworthy"? Anyone named Shane Wright who applies for a job with me will now have a much harder time, just from the negative association you have created for me.
"I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply."
I'm a conservative by nature (business owner, tax bracket affected by "tax cuts for the richest", etc) but that comment has to be the stupidest thing I have seen, and completely representative of the "political discourse" in America today. What ever happened to "I respectfully disagree with your position". Today it is "la-la-la, I can't hear you".
Well, I guess we will have to just disagree. I *don't* see computer games as "ephermeral". I see a good game as something that I will return to time and time again. We still play M.A.X. multiplayer, so I don't see how that is a straw man: my point with the reference is exactly this: "I play older games and I don't plan on buying any game that won't let me keep it if I actually enjoy it." Yes, Half Life is probably not one that I will replay (although I did replay Half Life a second time) often. But the argument is against encouraging this as a practice for game companies to adopt. I can still play Battle Isle. I will probably play Massive Assult for a long time. I can still play M.A.X. I couldn't play those if they were built on this type of technology.
Regarding the real straw man: I have to say that Wesnoth is a piece of trash which I have tried several times over it's development. *That* is a straw man: I should replace my *good* games with a *bad* game? I should simply agree that the industry is going to *enforce* an artificial "ephermeral" nature to the products I buy? I don't think so: I am going to vote with my pocket and avoid any game built on such a premise. If you have a problem with my decision to excercise free choice, well, I guess we disagree on what rights I have.
Why do you see wanting to use something you purchase for as long as you want as stupid? I'm stupid because I want to play M.A.X.? It is an *excellent* turn based strategy game, something which until Massive Assult came out, I suspected that the industry couldn't release anymore because of all the twitch driven gameplay that dominated the market.
Am I supposed to roll over and say "Wes, you stupid fuck, what do you need a turn based game for? Go play first person shooters like any other good lemming." Just because the industry doesn't want to produce games with half a brain anymore doesn't mean mine has rotted out.
Looking at benchmarks for TCC, combined with the fact this needs kernel patches to work, I don't see this as shenanigans.
15,000 - 16,000 lines per second for GCC vs 134,000 lines per second is a pretty huge speed improvement.
On the other hand, if "make clean" takes longer than 15 seconds on your machine, I have to wonder what you are doing. I'm typing this on a lowly 550 Mhz Pentium with 512 MB of RAM (running a full KDE install) and I can assure you I would be unhappy if running "clean" took that long.
Actually it *is* a big deal. I have some games that required activation from a few years ago where the company decided to stop issuing activation codes. Thanks, but no thanks, they can go to hell before I buy another game that requires activation.
that they have given me an excuse to not purchase the game. I use my machine for programming, with a bit of light gaming on the side. I'm not interested in Steam (I get my rear end handed to me in multiplay) and if I have to sell my machine's soul to their marketing drones, well they can take their delayed, litigated and now "strings attached" game and shove it.
Sad really, reviews are high and I loved the first one. I guess I will be more productive next month than I expected.
As someone who hires "industry professionals" I have to say that I'm not surprised that there are people out there claiming to be such and not knowing about index types. Heck, a good number of programmers think data storage equals flat files or if they are trendy XML DOM dumps. I have a friend graduating (BS) this year, with a whopping single database class under his belt, so the schools aren't teaching databases. I have had interviews with people who answer "how would you implement a many to many join in ANSI-SQL" with a blank stare (for a DATABASE position, mind you).
No, I don't feel these people are professionals, but they insist upon calling themselves such and prefer to purchase books that say "for professionals" rather than "for dummies".
I like your analogy with musicians, however there is one difference that I think makes programmers less likely to vanish than the bards who graced courts of old. If you press a CD with music on it, it is unlikely that even the most demanding listener today would want a custom version. However, when software exceeds a certain complexity threshold, it becomes almost a requirement for a business to customize it. It is in this way I see programmers remaining an important element of the development cycle, independent of your "rockstar" programmers.
Rockstar programmers are surely going to remain, but the vast majority of "programming" will be the customization of suites such as SAP and such. I'm a firm believer that open source and commercial applications will continue to erode the need to "roll from scratch" any application, but the irony is that when you have something as complex as SAP, you need a team of programmers simply to roll it out and ensure it works for the company.
I think the first wave of this has already happend: the vast number of today's programmers work in protected languages such as Java, C# or interpreted languages such as PHP and Perl. Coding in C++ is starting to feel a lot like programming in Assembly used to feel: cool and low level, but probably not the most productive and safe way to do it. Likewise, I rarely find myself looking as operating system API's, but instead frameworks that the higher level language presents. Application specific languages make sense and are going to consume a lot of manpower in the future as the "API" becomes the functionality of an entire business functionality suite.
In the end, the rockstars will design the infrastructure and the "regular Joe" programmers will work at much higher levels of abstraction. Franky, it makes a lot of sense to me.
Well, I don't know about that, but the article was very deceptive about this. Perhaps I'm labeling myself somehow by this comment, but the pictures at the main site are not *soft* porn. Far more graphic than I expected, I would feel uncomfortable installing in a home with a ten year old boy. Likewise, I *don't* own any of the Grand Theft Auto series for the same reason.
"Well done, you score 100% for observation."
My question is why did it take more than cursory research to discover that information? I think it was simple deceit to present it in this fashion. I'm not a prude and my son is already aware of sex (at least in an abstract way) because we talk openly in my home. However, I'm not sure depictions of degrading sex (which may "place sex within relationships") are really where I want to go at this time with products I bring home.
Thanks for your arrogant backlash at people who are trying to understand the type of content they are about to view though. It sure makes it a lot easier to defend the "people should police thier own families consumption of media" when people are deliberately misrepresenting the content. At least GTA *doesn't* do that.
Why not pick something more akin to the product in question... like Yahoo games or something. Eve On-line is a niche player in a niche of gaming. BNB is a casual game targeting families.
Nevertheless, the numbers indicate there is a very healthy group of technologically enabled families in China. I'm just curious what a more comparable service in the states would have on it.
Um, that's seems backwards. I still have a Super NES, and it works great. Meanwhile, my DOS games and many of my Windows 98 games won't run on my XP box.
Additionally, people *don't* buy "less console games": the PC market has been surpassed in volume and dollar share by console games. Or had you not noticed the shrinking wall of PC games in your local shops? The anemic PC game magazines of late?
Things like this type of "protection" for the PC game crowd simply mean that even less PC games are sold as people (like me) figure out they plan on punishing you for your work needs if you buy their product.
I have several games I was *never* able to play, nor return because of the "open box" policy. I'm not dismantling my work environment to suit the PC game manufacture: either make it compatible with my hardware, as is, or lose a sale. Sadly, they have already lost my sale: I looked at it at Cosco yesterday and passed on it, planning to read reviews. Thank goodness I did!
I'm a developer and as such I use some of the more obscure tools: including CloneCD (I have a library of my MSDN subscription CDs imaged on my server, for example). I back up to CD, so I have CD burning software on my machine. This isn't the first game where someone decided they know what is good for my machine better than I do. "You want to *use* your machine: then don't buy our game!" they say. I have learned my lesson: I don't buy your games. How exactly does that help your bottom line?
From the discussion board it appears it took two days for a NoCD crack to become available. How does *that* help your bottom line: you have people returning the game (rightfully so, many will have no clue why you want to cripple the computer just to play a game, even if they know *how* to cripple it) and yet the pirates didn't even skip a beat?
Nothing but bad press and bad customer service. Yes, the consoles are protected, but they are protected in a way that doesn't break the game and doesn't require gutting my machine's functionality to get there.
Fedora Core has the stated goal of being a development operating system for those who wish to be on the edge of development, not a stable operating system for running your enterprise. The fact that you would have to "switch" to something else tells me you are using Core for the wrong purposes.
Core works great for my desktop, because it doesn't matter if it gets blown away (everything is mirrored to my server) and I do want to work with the latest-and-maybe-greatest. For other applications, *please* switch to something that has the intent of being a platform and not a development base.
I have deployed XP SP2 fairly widely (50 odd machines) with no ill effects. The majority of "problems" are due to the proper functioning of the firewall, so understand what a software firewall does and how to open ports for programs.
One thing that is broken is loopback addresses other than 127.0.0.1: they don't function correctly, but I don't have any software that this affected.
As far as wireless goes, we did have one machine connected via a Linksys internal wireless card and a couple of notebooks. None of them were affected by SP2, but I was already using XPs native networking so you probably will want to test that if you are working with third part networking tools.
The statement that "the software in question has probably been used" doesn't really impress me. I doubt it would impress a judge either.
You are correct that SCO is trying to make it sound like it is difficult to prove, which is exactly why a backgrounder that shows it isn't hard would have been a darned good idea. SCO has ever intention of stringing this out for as long as possible, and anything that could help convince the judge now instead of forcing this to a jury trial (where, as it has been pointed out, anything can happen) would be a good idea. That was my point.
Remember, SCO doesn't have to prove anything, just bring enough doubt that the judge allows a jury trial. (That alone would spike stock prices I suspect.) Why would it be a good idea to leave an opening for more doubt? SCO said the same analysis would take tens of thousands of man hours for the sole purpose of leaving doubt. We know that is absurd, but even with SCO being wrong, raised doubts weaken the possibility of summary judgements. Meaning they get to play the stock market at least one more time for cash and prizes.
One thing was pointed out on Groklaw that I think was relevant. Although I think SCO has no case, I'm sure they will jump on the fact that the expert didn't provide an example of a true derivative work run through the same procedure.
It surely wouldn't have been hard to take some, say, early and "in the clear" code that has been reused and modified over time to show both that it can be identified and to show how code that has evolved can still leave the fingerprint of the original code. Without that counter example the failure to find matches would seem underwhelming. (The closest the testimony came to this was showing a positive result that was generated and showing how it was a commonly repeated pattern in all software written in C, not something specific to these two programs).
Perhaps elsewhere in IBMs testimony there was reference to this same procedure being successfully?
No official word yet on whether the company thinks there are any infringers.
Google doesn't look at the image, just the filename, alt tag and surrounding context. Likewise with Ditto. I fail to see how that involves "shapes, texture, color or resemblance to another image". There are other companies out there that should be worried, but the ones you mention are about as far from that patent as you can get and still search on images.
These guys are a closer match, but since they are doing 3D CAD/CAM models, perhaps they are safe to.
On the other hand... these guys (eVe Image Search Toolkit) could be in trouble if they are not the patent holders themselves.
This patent seems more applicable to finding images that have similar color properties and gross image shape, which could be really useful when looking for images that go well together when compositing, not for finding pictures of a specific thing (unless you have an example that is very similar to the object you seek.)
So for the forseeable future, metadata will be far more successfull at finding images. Computer vision is still incredibly primitive: more so than computer speech recognition ten years ago.
Interesting. I think there are two usages of the word grid being thrown about. The first is a case like what you describe: a closely coupled processing center which can scale based on demand.
However, I have also seen the word grid used to describe SETI@Home type endevors, except in a more dynamic way where idle devices can be enlisted to assist overloaded devices. Obviously the second form can use large application hosting facilities, but it could also use workstations to colaborate on a task.
These people seem to be attempting to do both with one framework.
I see your point, but I was really trying to clarify that the "over broadband" capabilities of CELL chips wasn't really tailored for the PS3, only the multiprocessing in a box.
Nevertheless, I don't see how GRID really helps with data intensive as opposed to compute intensive work. Your example of HR Block during tax season is an great example of why I don't see it working that well. Someone still has to collect and enter all the data. While actually computing the tax liability is quite quick and easy, the data collection is the hard part. How does IBM hosting a grid assist with the data collection? I guess they could treat it as a web farm and have a web app connected to a big database, but where is the efficiency gain here vs having a desktop for the workers with a shared file and data server?
Your later comment about 100 gigantic servers hosting 1000 customer's app is perhaps more of the kind of promise they should be making, but again the problem falls back to data storage. Either they store the data (in which case it isn't a "grid" but just application hosting) or they don't in which case many of the best uses of all that computing power is hamstrung by data transfer.
Actually that is only partly true. Yes, they can put cores on the same device, but GRID computing is linking *networked* devices to share the load. This portion of the capabilities will probably see little use on the PS3 except perhaps as a novelty, unless they plan on selling expansions boxes that put more processors on the machine. If they do so it would complicate development quite a bit and consumers would need to know "minimum Cells" required to run a game. Doubtful that part makes the cut.
In the server applications arena the GRID concept makes sense: if you have work you can farm out to another device while you work on the main line of code, why not? IBM's vision of GRID computing is that compute resources are like the electrical grid: you pull what you need from the grid on demand. Personally I don't see the value for most applications, but it could be a boon for scientific computations that need a lot of power but only run occasionally. If they make it cheaper than hosting your own cluster some research could see advantages.
That said, my wife does statistics on multi gigabyte files, for which "broadband" isn't going to allow her to farm out the work very easily to a grid. Likewise, my database apps are more data intensive than compute intensive. I worry that a lot of work is going into a nitch here.
Wow, "There isn't *ANY* way someone is hacking into something like that." Please say you are *NOT* part of the security team for these banks and insurance agencies. The first rule of security is that there is no such thing as perfect security. You can only mitigate risks. Banks tend to mitigate them fairly well, but I seem to remember a few banks trying to hush up compromises last year.
On the other side of the coin, when I work with insurance agencies, I can say truthfully they make a valiant effort at security. Yes, every company I have been at has exposed major blunders while I was there. Not intentionally of course, but what would you say if I said that one of the major (read: they own their own skyscraper) insurance companies in Heartford still has Windows 98 on desktops because the terminal emulator didn't work on 2000? Or that same said terminal emulator passed everything in cleartext?
I have to agree with those who think that kind of "check the server" security is a kiss of death for software. Remember all the hoopla about Windows Activation? There was some foundation, which people seem to have forgotten, to the concern.
If Microsoft was a smaller company (and here we are talking about tiny shareware companies) I would be concerned about the fact that you can install XP for only 30 days without activation. After that it goes dark. Now if Microsoft stops activating people's XP installations, you had better have your money in hand. [I am aware that corporations use a activation-less version: there is a reason it was demanded]. Unlikely, due to the size of the company and the backlash they would get, but...
If TinyOneManShop goes under, I'm basically out my money. In this case it is $20, which probably wouldn't cause many tears. However, there are several games I bought on-line a while back. My machine got blown away and I replaced it. Put the games back on the new machine, but there was no way to actually play them because... suprise, they went out of business. Now I'm out $100 for entertainment product which no longer entertains. Or does anything. That pisses me off.
Now look at a company like Macromedia. I refuse to purchase the newer versions of their software because they are playing this exact game. Well, that's all well and good as long as Macromedia doesn't decide to use it as a method of forced upgrades ("Sorry, your software doesn't activate anymore because Spiffy Version X is out") or just go out of buisiness.
I have likewise had CAD/CAM software become unusable after Windows NT 4.0 SP6 because it nuked the hardware key drivers. I have had CD key checking software puke because I have a DVD and a CD-RW. Let's face it... either your software is good enough to survive some piracy or you probably shouldn't be in the market. People who *really* want a corporate package are willing to buy support. Heck, they buy support for OSS for goodness sake. Interesting: the one thing his users want is support, and he isn't willing to see *that*.
Yes, you need at least specific average to *graduate*, but then you don't have any assurance of doing so. My wife teaches at a college and I can assure you that there are many D's and F's given out. However, unlike highschool and social promotion thereof, those people either shape up (and retake the class) or ship out (dropping out). Many do the latter (thus "x years college" being an popular answer to last grade completed).
Graduate school is a bit different, since you need a B (3.0) average to remain in it. C's are suspension and lower is removal from the program.
I think the grades represent how some hypothetical "average" community would fair. If you are in college, you *should* fair better than the community, and if you are in graduate school you *should* fair far better than the community. Those who don't shouldn't be at that level.
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Ok, I can understand the dislike of the bashing that goes on around here. My biggest concern when people think that SP2 is a cure-all is that many people are on 2000 (or earlier, sadly), and can't get SP2 without making the investment in licensing *and* application testing to move to XP. I have a client that uses a construction management software piece that doesn't work under XP unless you jump through some absurd hoops with file permissions (and then it is still crippled: looking forward to a patch *eventually*). I have another client who is upgrading to XP with new boxes, but won't eliminate the last 2000 machine for another year or so. Neither of these are going to be protected by SP2.
Personally, the latter case (slow phase out) annoys me, but all I can do is advise the client and try to keep them as productive as possible. So when something doesn't affect SP2, that is wonderful... for those who are there. Sadly, I still have to work with clients who barely left NT4 because no updates were available.
Yes, perhaps I should get better clients, but I like my side work overall and really *don't* see 2000 as "depreciated" yet, so I can't beat them up *too* much.
About 70% of your users are vulnerable and you don't see it as "newsworthy"? Anyone named Shane Wright who applies for a job with me will now have a much harder time, just from the negative association you have created for me.
Way off topic, MODs have a field day:
"I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply."
I'm a conservative by nature (business owner, tax bracket affected by "tax cuts for the richest", etc) but that comment has to be the stupidest thing I have seen, and completely representative of the "political discourse" in America today. What ever happened to "I respectfully disagree with your position". Today it is "la-la-la, I can't hear you".
Well, I guess we will have to just disagree. I *don't* see computer games as "ephermeral". I see a good game as something that I will return to time and time again. We still play M.A.X. multiplayer, so I don't see how that is a straw man: my point with the reference is exactly this: "I play older games and I don't plan on buying any game that won't let me keep it if I actually enjoy it." Yes, Half Life is probably not one that I will replay (although I did replay Half Life a second time) often. But the argument is against encouraging this as a practice for game companies to adopt. I can still play Battle Isle. I will probably play Massive Assult for a long time. I can still play M.A.X. I couldn't play those if they were built on this type of technology.
Regarding the real straw man: I have to say that Wesnoth is a piece of trash which I have tried several times over it's development. *That* is a straw man: I should replace my *good* games with a *bad* game? I should simply agree that the industry is going to *enforce* an artificial "ephermeral" nature to the products I buy? I don't think so: I am going to vote with my pocket and avoid any game built on such a premise. If you have a problem with my decision to excercise free choice, well, I guess we disagree on what rights I have.
Why do you see wanting to use something you purchase for as long as you want as stupid? I'm stupid because I want to play M.A.X.? It is an *excellent* turn based strategy game, something which until Massive Assult came out, I suspected that the industry couldn't release anymore because of all the twitch driven gameplay that dominated the market.
Am I supposed to roll over and say "Wes, you stupid fuck, what do you need a turn based game for? Go play first person shooters like any other good lemming." Just because the industry doesn't want to produce games with half a brain anymore doesn't mean mine has rotted out.
Looking at benchmarks for TCC, combined with the fact this needs kernel patches to work, I don't see this as shenanigans.
15,000 - 16,000 lines per second for GCC vs 134,000 lines per second is a pretty huge speed improvement.
On the other hand, if "make clean" takes longer than 15 seconds on your machine, I have to wonder what you are doing. I'm typing this on a lowly 550 Mhz Pentium with 512 MB of RAM (running a full KDE install) and I can assure you I would be unhappy if running "clean" took that long.
Actually it *is* a big deal. I have some games that required activation from a few years ago where the company decided to stop issuing activation codes. Thanks, but no thanks, they can go to hell before I buy another game that requires activation.
that they have given me an excuse to not purchase the game. I use my machine for programming, with a bit of light gaming on the side. I'm not interested in Steam (I get my rear end handed to me in multiplay) and if I have to sell my machine's soul to their marketing drones, well they can take their delayed, litigated and now "strings attached" game and shove it.
Sad really, reviews are high and I loved the first one. I guess I will be more productive next month than I expected.
As someone who hires "industry professionals" I have to say that I'm not surprised that there are people out there claiming to be such and not knowing about index types. Heck, a good number of programmers think data storage equals flat files or if they are trendy XML DOM dumps. I have a friend graduating (BS) this year, with a whopping single database class under his belt, so the schools aren't teaching databases. I have had interviews with people who answer "how would you implement a many to many join in ANSI-SQL" with a blank stare (for a DATABASE position, mind you).
No, I don't feel these people are professionals, but they insist upon calling themselves such and prefer to purchase books that say "for professionals" rather than "for dummies".
I like your analogy with musicians, however there is one difference that I think makes programmers less likely to vanish than the bards who graced courts of old. If you press a CD with music on it, it is unlikely that even the most demanding listener today would want a custom version. However, when software exceeds a certain complexity threshold, it becomes almost a requirement for a business to customize it. It is in this way I see programmers remaining an important element of the development cycle, independent of your "rockstar" programmers.
Rockstar programmers are surely going to remain, but the vast majority of "programming" will be the customization of suites such as SAP and such. I'm a firm believer that open source and commercial applications will continue to erode the need to "roll from scratch" any application, but the irony is that when you have something as complex as SAP, you need a team of programmers simply to roll it out and ensure it works for the company.
I think the first wave of this has already happend: the vast number of today's programmers work in protected languages such as Java, C# or interpreted languages such as PHP and Perl. Coding in C++ is starting to feel a lot like programming in Assembly used to feel: cool and low level, but probably not the most productive and safe way to do it. Likewise, I rarely find myself looking as operating system API's, but instead frameworks that the higher level language presents. Application specific languages make sense and are going to consume a lot of manpower in the future as the "API" becomes the functionality of an entire business functionality suite.
In the end, the rockstars will design the infrastructure and the "regular Joe" programmers will work at much higher levels of abstraction. Franky, it makes a lot of sense to me.
"Presumably you will now discount the game" ...
Well, I don't know about that, but the article was very deceptive about this. Perhaps I'm labeling myself somehow by this comment, but the pictures at the main site are not *soft* porn. Far more graphic than I expected, I would feel uncomfortable installing in a home with a ten year old boy. Likewise, I *don't* own any of the Grand Theft Auto series for the same reason.
"Well done, you score 100% for observation."
My question is why did it take more than cursory research to discover that information? I think it was simple deceit to present it in this fashion. I'm not a prude and my son is already aware of sex (at least in an abstract way) because we talk openly in my home. However, I'm not sure depictions of degrading sex (which may "place sex within relationships") are really where I want to go at this time with products I bring home.
Thanks for your arrogant backlash at people who are trying to understand the type of content they are about to view though. It sure makes it a lot easier to defend the "people should police thier own families consumption of media" when people are deliberately misrepresenting the content. At least GTA *doesn't* do that.
Why not pick something more akin to the product in question... like Yahoo games or something. Eve On-line is a niche player in a niche of gaming. BNB is a casual game targeting families.
Nevertheless, the numbers indicate there is a very healthy group of technologically enabled families in China. I'm just curious what a more comparable service in the states would have on it.
Um, that's seems backwards. I still have a Super NES, and it works great. Meanwhile, my DOS games and many of my Windows 98 games won't run on my XP box.
Additionally, people *don't* buy "less console games": the PC market has been surpassed in volume and dollar share by console games. Or had you not noticed the shrinking wall of PC games in your local shops? The anemic PC game magazines of late?
Things like this type of "protection" for the PC game crowd simply mean that even less PC games are sold as people (like me) figure out they plan on punishing you for your work needs if you buy their product.
I have several games I was *never* able to play, nor return because of the "open box" policy. I'm not dismantling my work environment to suit the PC game manufacture: either make it compatible with my hardware, as is, or lose a sale. Sadly, they have already lost my sale: I looked at it at Cosco yesterday and passed on it, planning to read reviews. Thank goodness I did!
I'm a developer and as such I use some of the more obscure tools: including CloneCD (I have a library of my MSDN subscription CDs imaged on my server, for example). I back up to CD, so I have CD burning software on my machine. This isn't the first game where someone decided they know what is good for my machine better than I do. "You want to *use* your machine: then don't buy our game!" they say. I have learned my lesson: I don't buy your games. How exactly does that help your bottom line?
From the discussion board it appears it took two days for a NoCD crack to become available. How does *that* help your bottom line: you have people returning the game (rightfully so, many will have no clue why you want to cripple the computer just to play a game, even if they know *how* to cripple it) and yet the pirates didn't even skip a beat?
Nothing but bad press and bad customer service. Yes, the consoles are protected, but they are protected in a way that doesn't break the game and doesn't require gutting my machine's functionality to get there.
Fedora Core has the stated goal of being a development operating system for those who wish to be on the edge of development, not a stable operating system for running your enterprise. The fact that you would have to "switch" to something else tells me you are using Core for the wrong purposes.
Core works great for my desktop, because it doesn't matter if it gets blown away (everything is mirrored to my server) and I do want to work with the latest-and-maybe-greatest. For other applications, *please* switch to something that has the intent of being a platform and not a development base.
I have deployed XP SP2 fairly widely (50 odd machines) with no ill effects. The majority of "problems" are due to the proper functioning of the firewall, so understand what a software firewall does and how to open ports for programs.
One thing that is broken is loopback addresses other than 127.0.0.1: they don't function correctly, but I don't have any software that this affected.
As far as wireless goes, we did have one machine connected via a Linksys internal wireless card and a couple of notebooks. None of them were affected by SP2, but I was already using XPs native networking so you probably will want to test that if you are working with third part networking tools.
The statement that "the software in question has probably been used" doesn't really impress me. I doubt it would impress a judge either.
You are correct that SCO is trying to make it sound like it is difficult to prove, which is exactly why a backgrounder that shows it isn't hard would have been a darned good idea. SCO has ever intention of stringing this out for as long as possible, and anything that could help convince the judge now instead of forcing this to a jury trial (where, as it has been pointed out, anything can happen) would be a good idea. That was my point.
Remember, SCO doesn't have to prove anything, just bring enough doubt that the judge allows a jury trial. (That alone would spike stock prices I suspect.) Why would it be a good idea to leave an opening for more doubt? SCO said the same analysis would take tens of thousands of man hours for the sole purpose of leaving doubt. We know that is absurd, but even with SCO being wrong, raised doubts weaken the possibility of summary judgements. Meaning they get to play the stock market at least one more time for cash and prizes.
One thing was pointed out on Groklaw that I think was relevant. Although I think SCO has no case, I'm sure they will jump on the fact that the expert didn't provide an example of a true derivative work run through the same procedure.
It surely wouldn't have been hard to take some, say, early and "in the clear" code that has been reused and modified over time to show both that it can be identified and to show how code that has evolved can still leave the fingerprint of the original code. Without that counter example the failure to find matches would seem underwhelming. (The closest the testimony came to this was showing a positive result that was generated and showing how it was a commonly repeated pattern in all software written in C, not something specific to these two programs).
Perhaps elsewhere in IBMs testimony there was reference to this same procedure being successfully?
Google doesn't look at the image, just the filename, alt tag and surrounding context. Likewise with Ditto. I fail to see how that involves "shapes, texture, color or resemblance to another image". There are other companies out there that should be worried, but the ones you mention are about as far from that patent as you can get and still search on images.
These guys are a closer match, but since they are doing 3D CAD/CAM models, perhaps they are safe to.
On the other hand... these guys (eVe Image Search Toolkit) could be in trouble if they are not the patent holders themselves.
This patent seems more applicable to finding images that have similar color properties and gross image shape, which could be really useful when looking for images that go well together when compositing, not for finding pictures of a specific thing (unless you have an example that is very similar to the object you seek.)
So for the forseeable future, metadata will be far more successfull at finding images. Computer vision is still incredibly primitive: more so than computer speech recognition ten years ago.
Interesting. I think there are two usages of the word grid being thrown about. The first is a case like what you describe: a closely coupled processing center which can scale based on demand.
However, I have also seen the word grid used to describe SETI@Home type endevors, except in a more dynamic way where idle devices can be enlisted to assist overloaded devices. Obviously the second form can use large application hosting facilities, but it could also use workstations to colaborate on a task.
These people seem to be attempting to do both with one framework.
I see your point, but I was really trying to clarify that the "over broadband" capabilities of CELL chips wasn't really tailored for the PS3, only the multiprocessing in a box.
Nevertheless, I don't see how GRID really helps with data intensive as opposed to compute intensive work. Your example of HR Block during tax season is an great example of why I don't see it working that well. Someone still has to collect and enter all the data. While actually computing the tax liability is quite quick and easy, the data collection is the hard part. How does IBM hosting a grid assist with the data collection? I guess they could treat it as a web farm and have a web app connected to a big database, but where is the efficiency gain here vs having a desktop for the workers with a shared file and data server?
Your later comment about 100 gigantic servers hosting 1000 customer's app is perhaps more of the kind of promise they should be making, but again the problem falls back to data storage. Either they store the data (in which case it isn't a "grid" but just application hosting) or they don't in which case many of the best uses of all that computing power is hamstrung by data transfer.
Actually that is only partly true. Yes, they can put cores on the same device, but GRID computing is linking *networked* devices to share the load. This portion of the capabilities will probably see little use on the PS3 except perhaps as a novelty, unless they plan on selling expansions boxes that put more processors on the machine. If they do so it would complicate development quite a bit and consumers would need to know "minimum Cells" required to run a game. Doubtful that part makes the cut.
In the server applications arena the GRID concept makes sense: if you have work you can farm out to another device while you work on the main line of code, why not? IBM's vision of GRID computing is that compute resources are like the electrical grid: you pull what you need from the grid on demand. Personally I don't see the value for most applications, but it could be a boon for scientific computations that need a lot of power but only run occasionally. If they make it cheaper than hosting your own cluster some research could see advantages.
That said, my wife does statistics on multi gigabyte files, for which "broadband" isn't going to allow her to farm out the work very easily to a grid. Likewise, my database apps are more data intensive than compute intensive. I worry that a lot of work is going into a nitch here.
Wow, "There isn't *ANY* way someone is hacking into something like that." Please say you are *NOT* part of the security team for these banks and insurance agencies. The first rule of security is that there is no such thing as perfect security. You can only mitigate risks. Banks tend to mitigate them fairly well, but I seem to remember a few banks trying to hush up compromises last year.
... I call BULL.
On the other side of the coin, when I work with insurance agencies, I can say truthfully they make a valiant effort at security. Yes, every company I have been at has exposed major blunders while I was there. Not intentionally of course, but what would you say if I said that one of the major (read: they own their own skyscraper) insurance companies in Heartford still has Windows 98 on desktops because the terminal emulator didn't work on 2000? Or that same said terminal emulator passed everything in cleartext?
"There isn't any way..."
I have to agree with those who think that kind of "check the server" security is a kiss of death for software. Remember all the hoopla about Windows Activation? There was some foundation, which people seem to have forgotten, to the concern.
If Microsoft was a smaller company (and here we are talking about tiny shareware companies) I would be concerned about the fact that you can install XP for only 30 days without activation. After that it goes dark. Now if Microsoft stops activating people's XP installations, you had better have your money in hand. [I am aware that corporations use a activation-less version: there is a reason it was demanded]. Unlikely, due to the size of the company and the backlash they would get, but...
If TinyOneManShop goes under, I'm basically out my money. In this case it is $20, which probably wouldn't cause many tears. However, there are several games I bought on-line a while back. My machine got blown away and I replaced it. Put the games back on the new machine, but there was no way to actually play them because... suprise, they went out of business. Now I'm out $100 for entertainment product which no longer entertains. Or does anything. That pisses me off.
Now look at a company like Macromedia. I refuse to purchase the newer versions of their software because they are playing this exact game. Well, that's all well and good as long as Macromedia doesn't decide to use it as a method of forced upgrades ("Sorry, your software doesn't activate anymore because Spiffy Version X is out") or just go out of buisiness.
I have likewise had CAD/CAM software become unusable after Windows NT 4.0 SP6 because it nuked the hardware key drivers. I have had CD key checking software puke because I have a DVD and a CD-RW. Let's face it... either your software is good enough to survive some piracy or you probably shouldn't be in the market. People who *really* want a corporate package are willing to buy support. Heck, they buy support for OSS for goodness sake. Interesting: the one thing his users want is support, and he isn't willing to see *that*.
You must not have gone to college then. :)
Yes, you need at least specific average to *graduate*, but then you don't have any assurance of doing so. My wife teaches at a college and I can assure you that there are many D's and F's given out. However, unlike highschool and social promotion thereof, those people either shape up (and retake the class) or ship out (dropping out). Many do the latter (thus "x years college" being an popular answer to last grade completed).
Graduate school is a bit different, since you need a B (3.0) average to remain in it. C's are suspension and lower is removal from the program.
I think the grades represent how some hypothetical "average" community would fair. If you are in college, you *should* fair better than the community, and if you are in graduate school you *should* fair far better than the community. Those who don't shouldn't be at that level.