Even if the report is deficient due to governmental deficiencies, the fact that it is out there is a good thing because there will be debate, and other reports attempting to support or refute this one, and the general process of discovery goes on. Much better for this information to be "open"
I agree that its good to have such information open. And discussion will help the quality of that information. But that's not the point.
The issue is that there is ALREADY open discussion. There is a wealth of information already available on the current state of infosec and best practices towards a good information security posture. But, for the most part, US Gov't Agencies fail to heed them.
This is simply yet another exercise in beurocracy. It is "not invented here" syndrome coupled with the appearance of doing something while not really actually accomplishing any useful goal.
This year's US Agency security report will undoubtedly continue to show failing grades.
And at least by going through the exercise of thinking like an attacker they may help spur the development of better defenses, traps, early warnings, recovery procedures , what have you.
The trouble is, Infosec has never been a strong point of the US Government. That's not to say there aren't niche sections of the US Gov't that are competant - maybe even far more advanced than is public knowledge. But as a whole, Governmental agencies have a hard time even keeping up with standard industry practices. When the US Government grades its own Infosec posture, it's not good.
There are certainly some Federal agencies that have contributed, and continue to contribute to the Infosec field. But as a whole, it has been my experience that there is much more buerocracy generated out of this type of interest than security. I wouldn't count on leadership in the field to come from this or any other US Governmental activity.
VHS, x86, Windows95, etc. may be/have been the inferior technologies, but they were the superior products. You need to realise this reality and deal with it before it costs you your business (unless your business happens to be the aformentioned niche geekfest products).
Looking for "superior products" is great if business is in itself what you're concerned with. If it's providing service based on solid technology then the superior technology IS, in fact, an important consideration. Incidently, the "niche geekfest products" tend to become major forces within business; sometimes even a disrupting technology. You might want to keep your eyes open unless it ends up costing you YOUR business.
And it's commercial, because they're using this to get viewers to access their other services which DO have advertising, as eyeballs are their business model.
Sure - Google has Adwords. That depends on eyeballs. But I wonder how much of Google's business is entirely eyeballs. We bought a googlebox partly because of Google's existing services and reputation as an information aggregator.
The CG award went to Forest Gump because they did a wonderful job of the tv scenes in which Gump was placed next to and interacting with various famous figures from the past, and it was done in a realistic fashion. That is very different from what the artists working on Star Wars attempt to accomplish.
I had thought about the mixing of genres when making my comparison, but went ahead with it for a couple reasons. First, the poster I was replying to noted that ILM's work appears throughout the industry. That sort of opens up the oportunity to jump genre.:) Second, the comparison underscores my point.
The most obvious use of CGI in Forest Gump is the effect you mentioned - mixing current footage with archived footage. But the movie was riddled with CGI. Some examples include the feather in the opening sequence, the tracers in the combat scene, removing actor's legs for Lt. Dan's post-war scenes, the ping-pong ball... all subtle use of CGI.
Sure - this is all different than what's being done in Star Wars. But maybe that's the point - it shouldn't be. Too often with the later Star Wars films, there are CGI scenes that scream "look what we can do." When the effect works, it's great. When it doesn't, it's painfully obvious. Or.. at least... obvious enough that others (to include myself) get a subconcious feeling that something just isn't right.
Hell, he'll win me back if he makes "Sith" nothing more than a 2 hour extremely bloody high body count Gungan snuff flick. The only time the Gungan slaughter stops is when the Ewoks show up and they become the target.
Shh. Don't say that. George will hear and we'll have some made-for-TV series that involves a war between Gungans and Ewoks. But it won't be a bloodfest. It'll be stopped when two bumbling droids take it upon themselves to try and emulate the Jedi council, intervene, and end hostilities with a round of simply discussing each other's differences and much awkward hugging and salivating amoung Ewok and Gungan leaders.
The final scene will be a closeup of Darth JarJar saying "Meesa really pleased..."
But does ILM apply the same technology in everything they do? For that matter, ILM also did the origional Star Wars. Not the same techniques at all, obviously.
Of course - it's not just ILM. There are other recent films by other SFX shops that use cutting edge CGI that, frankly, is visibly straining. The trick is to not make it stand out so much. And a large part of that is to make it a minor part in the movie - not a lead.
Star Wars is dependant on it's flash. It's always been that way. But it seems like the new trilogy has decided that SFX is no longer just a suport, albiet major, character but one of the main characters in its own right.
Compare this to Forrest Gump. This film was also worked on by ILM. And, in fact, the movie won numerous awards for visual effects (to include 1995's Oscar). Yet it's very easy to forget... or not even realize... how much visual effects and specifically CGI is going on in the movie.
It may just have skipped past your attention, but the whole 'trusted computing' initiative is heading to put just those copy controls in every device. Now, if Nero has the bits built in there to cope with it from the moment it's released, and the rest of the open tools lag, at least there's some product out there that can handle the slack until Open works it out, and gets back in the game. If it doesn't, no big deal. People use what they feel like.
Actually - I believe that's exactly what he's talking about. It's you that's missed something.
Take a look at CSS. In order to read a DVD, you need to be able to handle CSS. And to do that, you're supposed to be a licensee.
Of course, one such lincensee screwed up and left all licensee's keys available for plunder (though at the same time the CSS encryption was also broken). This made it possible for an infamous hacker to write a nifty bit of code that allows one to access the DVD without being a licensee.
The industry reps cried piracy. But DeCSS was a much needed step towards Free Software having fair use access to the media their owners purchased. The interesting bit here is that the community could point to the reverse engineering for compatibility clause of the DMCA and press on. As much as Industry reps would talk up soon-to-come licensed DVD players for Linux... they were a very, very long time coming.
That's the history and the background for the argument. If the Next Big Thing in "Digital Rights Management" sweeps the hardware world and Nero brings immediate compatability to Linux... will Open Source developers still be covered by that DMCA clause?
Fair enough point. But keep in mind that Trillian isn't the one who states that their users have no expectation of privacy and any content being transmitted through their client is perpetually licensed to Trillian and its agents, et al.
The security features are really there for aim's marketability to corporate markets, so its probably reliable.
How much of the consumer AIM code is used for the Enterprise product? Is it the same client? It's not the same server - the Enterprise solution involves a stand-alone server deployed on site. And come to think of it... knowing how "Enterprise" encryption products are marketed... there would very likely be a feature that enables the server admins to pull an entire transcript of any communication. Such a feature would easily be applied to the consumer product too.
Granted - I'm playing devil's advocate here. I don't have direct knowledge of any such features. But I would caution against blind trust in a company that has a policy of acting against one's own interest.
The official AIM client supports encryption via client-side certificates, too. Options -> Preferences -> Security.
Yes, well... of course you DO trust AOL, right? Their embeded encryption option is surely the right way to go. Not like they would do anything underhanded that would invade your.... privacy... that you apparently don't have any expection to. Wait a minute...
Now, let's talk about bugs in major OSS applications with dozens of votes and/or dozens of duplicate reports that haven't been addressed more than a year after first being filed, shall we?
Only if you want to continue talking about the features and bugs that don't get fixed in proprietary software. We ARE going to continue with apples-to-apples here, right?
There are some vendors that have done a very good job at integrating much-needed requests from my group at work. And they should - we're paying them considerable support fees as well as being influential in additional sales to our organization. But it's no guarantee. We've also had very expensive support fees that lead to little more than apparent shock we'd want some feature to months of Kavorkian helpdesk tickets.
It might also be fair to note that we've had simular success with Open Source software too. Sometimes our notes and requests end up languishing in a bugtracking queue. Sometimes we get very quick responses from the project developers with new releases reflecting our suggestions. And other times we get exactly what we want because we paid for the developer to put it in.
Pity the small business / user. The best way to get your interests serviced is to either spend considerable funds (relative to the organization you're paying to) or donate the expertise yourself. And even then there's no guarentee.
I'm not so sure. I use both Konsole and Screen regularly. Though, to tell you the truth... I'm not entirely sure why. And if I had to give up one or the other, it would definately be the tabs. But having said all that... if Screen fit all situations, one would think I'd be using only Screen.
Eh, you're two horrible generations behind. The paranormal stuff got started when I was in high school with the X-Files, and Im an old man now.
Actually - you're several generations behind. You can find examples of paranormal TV shows throughout TV history. Take Dark Shadows as an example. But we could go back further to classics such as The Twilight Zone (later followed by The Outer Limits) which often featured paranormal elements. It's interesting that both Twilight Zone and Outer Limits had more recent revivals.
It might also be worth noting that SciFi and the paranormal dot the TV history landscape; even when other genres are dominant. For example, the time of Twilight Zone and Star Trek is often associated with the TV Western. Yet it produced some of the foundational classics of today's popular shows.
You also need to keep in mind that linux users dont buy software and that is the big difference between them and Mac users.
What's the data to back up that claim? If it's a simple observation - I can offer one too. Every commercial piece of software out there, no matter what platform and to include MacOS and Windows is available as "warez". It would seem that Windows and MacOS users don't pay for software too.
Of course, we know that's bunk. It's more complex an issue than that. Just as there are considerable offerings available for Linux without a fee... there is also commercial software available for a fee. And people do, in fact, buy that software. I know - I'm one of them.
My first brush with Linux was about 7yrs back too. But unlike you, I didn't have a PII that transformed in to a 188Mhz AMD. My first system was an old Intel 486DX2-66 that was purchased cheap to introduce myself to Linux. It became the gateway to my fledling network - performing admirably.
A couple months later, I decided I wanted to try this out as a desktop. My desktop system was based on an AMD K62-333. It had a 12g HD with a partitioning table that supported Win98 and Debian Linux. It took me the day to set up, to include support for my Matrox G100 / Monster II setup and ADI monitor. Over the years, my Windows partition slowly shrunk as I sliced off more and more space to grow my Linux parition. Until, one day, I realized that I hadn't booted in to Windows for over a year. The Windows partition got deleted and has yet to reappear on my home workstation over the following years.
That's not to say I don't still use Windows; my job requires it. I have it on a dual-boot work laptop. Though I may end up running VMWare to access it.
The days may be long gone, but they haunt my memories and have me running XP.
To each their own. I've run Fedora Core 1 on a work laptop. I then, just for giggles, moved to SuSE 9.2 to check that out. Everything seems to do well with the exception of some dodgey support for LEAP - Cisco needs to give their Linux client some attention. Having said that, my WinXP-only coworkers tend to have their problems with our WAPs too... so I'm not so concerned about losing productivity over the occasional hiccups.
I have to admit, though, that this hasn't always been the case. I've shopped distros against work-provided hardware before. Several years ago, it was quite the experience. I started with Debian, no dice. Tried Redhat - no luck. Eventually ended up with Mandrake which handled my Toshiba laptop well.
Like all OS installs, it helps to start out with hardware that has better support for your target OS (assuming you have control over that choice).
A few years ago, I purchased a discount laptop that came with WinCE. I needed a dual-boot environment so I was going to keep a Windows partition... but it wasn't going to be WinCE. I wasn't keen on buying a WinXP option from the vendor. But I did have a full license for Win2k that was languishing on my shelf. Unfortunately, the laptop manufacturer didn't support Win2K and getting all the drivers needed proved to be a challenge. Ironically, Mandrake took to the laptop with considerably less aggravation.
It also helps that there seems to be more standards for laptop hardware these days. I've had less and less problems installing Linux on laptops over the years.
The only major area where Microsoft have used a lot of BSD code (assuming they respect the copyright clause, which they appear to do) is in the userland tools for Services for UNIX (which appear to be mostly from OpenBSD), and that was actually a purchase of third-party code too (the acquisition of Softway Systems).
A few of the minor userland Windows tools were also BSD tools. And as an aside, a large portion of the Services for Unix tools are actually GNU tools - not just BSD (I've been told the percentage differs depending on if you install the optional SDK or not).
You'd have a point if this particular code was also covered under the CPL. Or if Microsoft was doing this with more projects, and one with more substance than the WTL.
And to think the entire empire was based on one simple fact: if you make the ads appear to be contextual and related to the rest of a page, a large majority of users (over 80%) will not recognize they're even looking at ads, and thus will be more likely to click.
That's the fundamental genius of Google. They've fooled most of their users. Btw if you don't believe the part about most users being unable to recognize text ads, here's the story about it from the BBC:
That's an interesting claim. The problem is, the article you present as evidence does a poor job at supporting it.
First, the article isn't about Google. It covers a general poll about search engines. Trying to apply all results to Google specifically is misleading. The possibly relevant parts of the article:
The report reveals that 84% of net users say they regularly use Google, Ask Jeeves, MSN and Yahoo when online.
Almost 50% of those questioned said they would trust search engines much less, if they knew information about who paid for results was being hidden.
According to Pew Research 44% of searchers use just a single search engine, 48% use two or three and a small number, 7%, consult more than three sites.
Of those asked, 62% were unaware that someone has paid for some of the results they see when they carry out a search.
Only 18% of all searchers say they can tell which results are paid for and which are not.
Said the Pew report: "This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results."
According to this survey, your claim of "over 80%" is actually 62%. That is, assuming this group of users can always be applied to Google - the data says otherwise.
Of course, the issue over what search engines are being used might be less important than I'm implying. Doing a search for "security" (a suggestion from another poster) on each of the listed search engines shows remarkably similar layouts. The odd thing is that they're all mimicking Google - or at least a previous version of Google. So does this all get applied squarely on Google in a round-about way? Not at all.
Indistinguishable ads were hardly Google's innovation. At the time Google came out, there were already search engines who mixed paid-for results in to their normal output with even less, if any distinction.
Google offering "sponsored" results was hardly new. An interesting distinction was Google's separating those results from it's content. And doing so rather distinctly with various visual clues.
So where does this 62% of unaware respondents come from? From the poll:
In recent years, most Internet search engines have begun providing customers with TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of search results some that are PAID or SPONSORED results, and others that are UNPAID results. Were you aware that search engines now do this, or were you not aware of this?
Based on Internet users who have a used a search engine [N=1,165]
CURRENT % 38 Yes, aware of it
62 No, not aware
* Don't know/Refused
While being aware of the ads would certainly help identify them, it doesn't mean that those ads are unidentifiable. Nor does it mean users are clicking them. If you look at my sample search at Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo , you'll note an interesting distinction between Google and its competitors. Google has long done away with the sponsored searc
My piece had the temerity to question the usefulness of Google digitizing millions of books and making bits of them available via its notoriously inefficient search engine. The Google phenomenon is a wonderfully modern manifestation of the triumph of hope and boosterism over reality. Hailed as the ultimate example of information retrieval, Google is, in fact, the device that gives you thousands of "hits" (which may or may not be relevant) in no very useful order.
I'm perplexed. Google - "notoriously inefficient"? What the heck is this guy talking about? What am I missing?
Unfortunately, the op-ed piece didn't link to the origional article (or any discussion on it). Blog People would have managed to do so, by the way. So I was forced to look for it on my own. On Google. And found it. First try.
Huh.
I use Google daily. And since most of my querries involve technical subjects, Google tends to serve me very well. And while Google is usually stellar on non-technical subjects too, there are times that I just don't find what I need. It seems there are some rare subjects that just don't get good coverage on the Web. But then - isn't that what this digitization project is about? Bridging Web-based knowledge with classic print?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that its good to have such information open. And discussion will help the quality of that information. But that's not the point.
The issue is that there is ALREADY open discussion. There is a wealth of information already available on the current state of infosec and best practices towards a good information security posture. But, for the most part, US Gov't Agencies fail to heed them.
This is simply yet another exercise in beurocracy. It is "not invented here" syndrome coupled with the appearance of doing something while not really actually accomplishing any useful goal.
This year's US Agency security report will undoubtedly continue to show failing grades.
The trouble is, Infosec has never been a strong point of the US Government. That's not to say there aren't niche sections of the US Gov't that are competant - maybe even far more advanced than is public knowledge. But as a whole, Governmental agencies have a hard time even keeping up with standard industry practices. When the US Government grades its own Infosec posture, it's not good.
There are certainly some Federal agencies that have contributed, and continue to contribute to the Infosec field. But as a whole, it has been my experience that there is much more buerocracy generated out of this type of interest than security. I wouldn't count on leadership in the field to come from this or any other US Governmental activity.
Looking for "superior products" is great if business is in itself what you're concerned with. If it's providing service based on solid technology then the superior technology IS, in fact, an important consideration. Incidently, the "niche geekfest products" tend to become major forces within business; sometimes even a disrupting technology. You might want to keep your eyes open unless it ends up costing you YOUR business.
Sure - Google has Adwords. That depends on eyeballs. But I wonder how much of Google's business is entirely eyeballs. We bought a googlebox partly because of Google's existing services and reputation as an information aggregator.
I had thought about the mixing of genres when making my comparison, but went ahead with it for a couple reasons. First, the poster I was replying to noted that ILM's work appears throughout the industry. That sort of opens up the oportunity to jump genre.
The most obvious use of CGI in Forest Gump is the effect you mentioned - mixing current footage with archived footage. But the movie was riddled with CGI. Some examples include the feather in the opening sequence, the tracers in the combat scene, removing actor's legs for Lt. Dan's post-war scenes, the ping-pong ball... all subtle use of CGI.
Sure - this is all different than what's being done in Star Wars. But maybe that's the point - it shouldn't be. Too often with the later Star Wars films, there are CGI scenes that scream "look what we can do." When the effect works, it's great. When it doesn't, it's painfully obvious. Or.. at least... obvious enough that others (to include myself) get a subconcious feeling that something just isn't right.
I wouldn't call that polished.
Shh. Don't say that. George will hear and we'll have some made-for-TV series that involves a war between Gungans and Ewoks. But it won't be a bloodfest. It'll be stopped when two bumbling droids take it upon themselves to try and emulate the Jedi council, intervene, and end hostilities with a round of simply discussing each other's differences and much awkward hugging and salivating amoung Ewok and Gungan leaders.
The final scene will be a closeup of Darth JarJar saying "Meesa really pleased..."
I felt a great disturbance in the Net, as if millions of clients suddenly requested the same URL and in response, a server was suddenly silenced.
But does ILM apply the same technology in everything they do? For that matter, ILM also did the origional Star Wars. Not the same techniques at all, obviously.
Of course - it's not just ILM. There are other recent films by other SFX shops that use cutting edge CGI that, frankly, is visibly straining. The trick is to not make it stand out so much. And a large part of that is to make it a minor part in the movie - not a lead.
Star Wars is dependant on it's flash. It's always been that way. But it seems like the new trilogy has decided that SFX is no longer just a suport, albiet major, character but one of the main characters in its own right.
Compare this to Forrest Gump. This film was also worked on by ILM. And, in fact, the movie won numerous awards for visual effects (to include 1995's Oscar). Yet it's very easy to forget... or not even realize... how much visual effects and specifically CGI is going on in the movie.
Actually - I believe that's exactly what he's talking about. It's you that's missed something.
Take a look at CSS. In order to read a DVD, you need to be able to handle CSS. And to do that, you're supposed to be a licensee.
Of course, one such lincensee screwed up and left all licensee's keys available for plunder (though at the same time the CSS encryption was also broken). This made it possible for an infamous hacker to write a nifty bit of code that allows one to access the DVD without being a licensee.
The industry reps cried piracy. But DeCSS was a much needed step towards Free Software having fair use access to the media their owners purchased. The interesting bit here is that the community could point to the reverse engineering for compatibility clause of the DMCA and press on. As much as Industry reps would talk up soon-to-come licensed DVD players for Linux... they were a very, very long time coming.
That's the history and the background for the argument. If the Next Big Thing in "Digital Rights Management" sweeps the hardware world and Nero brings immediate compatability to Linux... will Open Source developers still be covered by that DMCA clause?
Fair enough point. But keep in mind that Trillian isn't the one who states that their users have no expectation of privacy and any content being transmitted through their client is perpetually licensed to Trillian and its agents, et al.
How much of the consumer AIM code is used for the Enterprise product? Is it the same client? It's not the same server - the Enterprise solution involves a stand-alone server deployed on site. And come to think of it... knowing how "Enterprise" encryption products are marketed... there would very likely be a feature that enables the server admins to pull an entire transcript of any communication. Such a feature would easily be applied to the consumer product too.
Granted - I'm playing devil's advocate here. I don't have direct knowledge of any such features. But I would caution against blind trust in a company that has a policy of acting against one's own interest.
Yes, well... of course you DO trust AOL, right? Their embeded encryption option is surely the right way to go. Not like they would do anything underhanded that would invade your.... privacy... that you apparently don't have any expection to. Wait a minute...
Breaking news: Google not Microsoft! News at 11.
Only if you want to continue talking about the features and bugs that don't get fixed in proprietary software. We ARE going to continue with apples-to-apples here, right?
There are some vendors that have done a very good job at integrating much-needed requests from my group at work. And they should - we're paying them considerable support fees as well as being influential in additional sales to our organization. But it's no guarantee. We've also had very expensive support fees that lead to little more than apparent shock we'd want some feature to months of Kavorkian helpdesk tickets.
It might also be fair to note that we've had simular success with Open Source software too. Sometimes our notes and requests end up languishing in a bugtracking queue. Sometimes we get very quick responses from the project developers with new releases reflecting our suggestions. And other times we get exactly what we want because we paid for the developer to put it in.
Pity the small business / user. The best way to get your interests serviced is to either spend considerable funds (relative to the organization you're paying to) or donate the expertise yourself. And even then there's no guarentee.
Welcome to reality of IT.
I'm not so sure. I use both Konsole and Screen regularly. Though, to tell you the truth... I'm not entirely sure why. And if I had to give up one or the other, it would definately be the tabs. But having said all that... if Screen fit all situations, one would think I'd be using only Screen.
Actually - you're several generations behind. You can find examples of paranormal TV shows throughout TV history. Take Dark Shadows as an example. But we could go back further to classics such as The Twilight Zone (later followed by The Outer Limits) which often featured paranormal elements. It's interesting that both Twilight Zone and Outer Limits had more recent revivals.
It might also be worth noting that SciFi and the paranormal dot the TV history landscape; even when other genres are dominant. For example, the time of Twilight Zone and Star Trek is often associated with the TV Western. Yet it produced some of the foundational classics of today's popular shows.
What's the data to back up that claim? If it's a simple observation - I can offer one too. Every commercial piece of software out there, no matter what platform and to include MacOS and Windows is available as "warez". It would seem that Windows and MacOS users don't pay for software too.
Of course, we know that's bunk. It's more complex an issue than that. Just as there are considerable offerings available for Linux without a fee... there is also commercial software available for a fee. And people do, in fact, buy that software. I know - I'm one of them.
There's plenty of people who didn't use RedHat well before the split in RedHat's offerings and the introduction of the Fedora distro.
That's not the point. Gilmore had a valid ID. But he is incapable of driving which limits the methods he has available to him for travel.
My first brush with Linux was about 7yrs back too. But unlike you, I didn't have a PII that transformed in to a 188Mhz AMD. My first system was an old Intel 486DX2-66 that was purchased cheap to introduce myself to Linux. It became the gateway to my fledling network - performing admirably.
A couple months later, I decided I wanted to try this out as a desktop. My desktop system was based on an AMD K62-333. It had a 12g HD with a partitioning table that supported Win98 and Debian Linux. It took me the day to set up, to include support for my Matrox G100 / Monster II setup and ADI monitor. Over the years, my Windows partition slowly shrunk as I sliced off more and more space to grow my Linux parition. Until, one day, I realized that I hadn't booted in to Windows for over a year. The Windows partition got deleted and has yet to reappear on my home workstation over the following years.
That's not to say I don't still use Windows; my job requires it. I have it on a dual-boot work laptop. Though I may end up running VMWare to access it.
To each their own. I've run Fedora Core 1 on a work laptop. I then, just for giggles, moved to SuSE 9.2 to check that out. Everything seems to do well with the exception of some dodgey support for LEAP - Cisco needs to give their Linux client some attention. Having said that, my WinXP-only coworkers tend to have their problems with our WAPs too... so I'm not so concerned about losing productivity over the occasional hiccups.
I have to admit, though, that this hasn't always been the case. I've shopped distros against work-provided hardware before. Several years ago, it was quite the experience. I started with Debian, no dice. Tried Redhat - no luck. Eventually ended up with Mandrake which handled my Toshiba laptop well.
Like all OS installs, it helps to start out with hardware that has better support for your target OS (assuming you have control over that choice).
A few years ago, I purchased a discount laptop that came with WinCE. I needed a dual-boot environment so I was going to keep a Windows partition... but it wasn't going to be WinCE. I wasn't keen on buying a WinXP option from the vendor. But I did have a full license for Win2k that was languishing on my shelf. Unfortunately, the laptop manufacturer didn't support Win2K and getting all the drivers needed proved to be a challenge. Ironically, Mandrake took to the laptop with considerably less aggravation.
It also helps that there seems to be more standards for laptop hardware these days. I've had less and less problems installing Linux on laptops over the years.
A few of the minor userland Windows tools were also BSD tools. And as an aside, a large portion of the Services for Unix tools are actually GNU tools - not just BSD (I've been told the percentage differs depending on if you install the optional SDK or not).
You'd have a point if this particular code was also covered under the CPL. Or if Microsoft was doing this with more projects, and one with more substance than the WTL.
That's an interesting claim. The problem is, the article you present as evidence does a poor job at supporting it.
First, the article isn't about Google. It covers a general poll about search engines. Trying to apply all results to Google specifically is misleading. The possibly relevant parts of the article:
According to this survey, your claim of "over 80%" is actually 62%. That is, assuming this group of users can always be applied to Google - the data says otherwise.
Of course, the issue over what search engines are being used might be less important than I'm implying. Doing a search for "security" (a suggestion from another poster) on each of the listed search engines shows remarkably similar layouts. The odd thing is that they're all mimicking Google - or at least a previous version of Google. So does this all get applied squarely on Google in a round-about way? Not at all.
Indistinguishable ads were hardly Google's innovation. At the time Google came out, there were already search engines who mixed paid-for results in to their normal output with even less, if any distinction.
Google offering "sponsored" results was hardly new. An interesting distinction was Google's separating those results from it's content. And doing so rather distinctly with various visual clues.
So where does this 62% of unaware respondents come from? From the poll:
While being aware of the ads would certainly help identify them, it doesn't mean that those ads are unidentifiable. Nor does it mean users are clicking them. If you look at my sample search at Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo , you'll note an interesting distinction between Google and its competitors. Google has long done away with the sponsored searc
I'm perplexed. Google - "notoriously inefficient"? What the heck is this guy talking about? What am I missing?
Unfortunately, the op-ed piece didn't link to the origional article (or any discussion on it). Blog People would have managed to do so, by the way. So I was forced to look for it on my own. On Google. And found it. First try.
Huh.
I use Google daily. And since most of my querries involve technical subjects, Google tends to serve me very well. And while Google is usually stellar on non-technical subjects too, there are times that I just don't find what I need. It seems there are some rare subjects that just don't get good coverage on the Web. But then - isn't that what this digitization project is about? Bridging Web-based knowledge with classic print?
Again - I'm obviously missing this guy's point.