I can attest that Win2k *will* run with a mere 8mb of RAM. It probably wouldn't *install*, but it DOES boot and run. I learned this by accidentally hooking the wrong HD, the one that already had Win2K on it, to the 486DX4-100 that I use as a SIMM tester... which at the time had but 8mb of RAM in it. It took about 3 minutes to boot, and actually ran well enough for light use (about like Win95 on a P75/16mb). I was amazed.
I know what you mean... I've had a few Cyrix CPUs fall on my head, but if I had to buy one... I think I'd rather use an abacus. It'd be faster, and it wouldn't burn the house down either!!
One of my test rigs is a 486DX4-100. On this particular day it had only 8mb of RAM in it. I wanted a boot disk for whatever I was testing, so I grabbed a HD from the pile... and got the one with Win2K on it by mistake. Amazingly, it not only booted up (tho it took about 3 minutes to reach the desktop), it ran well enough to use for basic work.
Doesn't affect all machines. I have a P4-3.06GHz system that presently dual-boots Win98 and WinXP, no problems with either, and it was NOT patched. -- I wonder if the real problem is a timer bug in some hardware.
Um... if the problem arose during the attempt to INSTALL Win9x, that's not Windows; it's a bug in that family of AMD CPUs. Linux wouldn't install on the affected CPUs either. Something about the 32bitness being broken, I forget the details.
I recall one theory that the Book of Mormon was originally intended to be a fantasy novel. Indeed, it follows publishers' strictures for such novels in its day: A "fantastic" story could not be told directly (as is done in modern novels), but it COULD be written as a tale told BY a fantastic visitor TO a mundane. (Publishers then believed that telling such tales directly would be "too unbelievable" thus unsalable.)
Structurally, it somewhat resembles The Worm Ouroboros.
Apparently it was at least somewhat well-researched, tho -- I know someone who does American Indian genealogies, and she says it's quite accurate for that, despite some amazingly, um, undocumentable descriptions (my fave is the one where early Americans fought battles using *steel* swords).
I had a Mormon landlord as a kid, and he dragged us to numerous events. The result of this education was that when those nice young men in their cheap black suits came to the door, I'd haul out my Annotated BoM and *argue* with them, using examples from their own scriptures.:)
[Disclaimer: I was raised Lutheran, but became atheist as a direct result of Sunday School -- the more I studied the less I believed. However, I don't really care what others believe.]
I was being facetious, but yes... paper paths can be an ugly thing, and the simpler they are, the fewer places they can go wrong (and the less swearing one does whilst extracting a paper jam:) And yeah, people here tend to forget it's not just about printing single-sided memos!
You're with Xerox, eh? In that case, let me relate what has been volunteered at me in EVERY conversation I've had in the past couple years, re small-business printers: Xerox needs to seriously rethink their paper paths; constant jamming is the #1 complaint. I know one fellow who prints enough to go thru 50 toner carts a month, and he finally gave up on his Xerox (it's now retired -- warranty, service contract, and all) and went to using only his HP, of similar grade and vintage. (Somewhere in the $3k-$5k range of printers.)
I've been to Xerox presentations and loved some of the ideas they're coming up with (particularly for networked printers), but when I say to someone, "have you looked at the Xerox Whatever model?" and they immediately produce a firsthand horror story, that's something the company needs to be aware of, that they may not be hearing about from their service contractors.
Actually, I have seen an uninstaller create catastrophe a few times, and have become very leery of uninstallers from some sources. Frex, one common problem with database demos is that the uninstaller will delete not only its own stuff, but also the *system* database engine (normally installed by Paradox, dBase, etc.) and then you've got to reinstall that and hope it still works.
But at least with a proper uninstaller, you are *expecting* a certain, hopefully controlled, "catastrophe" -- theoretically affecting only its own files. It doesn't come as a complete surprise!
As to this app, the several folks who tested it all reported variable file deletion, implying the deletion routine DID exist, and was extremely buggy.
Regardless... that it's now been removed and the developer is trying to make amends by opensourcing the app is the best possible result, and the *only* potential route to forgiveness and a chance to rebuild trust.
I know of no other case where the dev has in any way apologized or made amends (usually they either blame users, or take their toys and go home).
Given Reza's own very positive response to the PR disaster, I'm now inclined to give him a second chance.
FUD or not, I'd still be concerned that the Destroy function could go awry, and might delete files it had no business touching. That could be as simple a bug as failing to check where it's logged to before it starts killing files.
I'd also be concerned that a mere typo (or the program misreading the input) while entering a legit serial number could trigger this.
I remember some years ago a particular DOS app would delete all files in the %TEMP% directory at exit. Trouble was, it assumed that all users were savvy enough to have moved the TEMP variable away from the default, which happened to be C:\DOS. So when the program was run, at exit it proceeded to delete the contents of the user's DOS directory. (At the time the coder reacted by saying users who didn't change their TEMP variable were too stupid to live anyway... how is that his determination to make? and if so, why didn't he take steps to protect even stupid users' data??)
Several times, I've had legit software refuse to accept its legit key, and had to go find one somewhere on the net to make it work. Not just small stuff either -- in one case, the app was Win98!!
Anyway, my point is... see how easy it is for the coder to make a mistake that could cost legit users bigtime?!
"That's probably been a limiting factor in sales, which the developer interprets as piracy."
I remember in the previous discussion (linked in TFBlurb) the author of a particular program complained that he'd had several million downloads, but zero registrations. In his mind, all those millions of downloads were "piracy".
Well, I could have told him why no one registered his program: I'd long ago downloaded and tried it, but no way would I pay for it -- it's just not very good, in fact it's probably the most limited, most poorly designed, and least useful of the many apps in its field that I've tried. And there are a ton of better alternatives available for free.
What he didn't grok was that if you want to sell something, it's got to be at least comparable to the competition at that price point. Just because YOU made it and YOU love it doesn't mean it's necessarily something anyone else will feel is worth paying for.
One version of dBase had copy protection that did exactly that (this was back in the era of running programs from a floppy disk). If your initial input wasn't correct, and that included mere typoes or doing something in the wrong order during program startup, the program deleted itself off the floppy, irrecoverably.
The upshot was that once word got around, it became impossible to sell this version at all, and this copy protection scheme soon went away.
As to a program that deletes user data if a bad serial number is entered -- there's always the possibility that a mere TYPO could trigger this. I would never, EVER try such a program even in demo mode, because I could never trust that some bug in the program wouldn't set it off. Hence I'd never even look at the app in question, let alone buy it. And I would never again trust a coder who had implemented such a boobytrap.
IMO it would make more sense to do what the author of Getright now does: if the program detects a bogus serial number, it shuts itself down for 12 hours, and when it lets you restart it, it's back in shareware mode. No destruction, and no discouragement from taking another look at the program, perhaps eventually to buy it.
Occurs to me that one solution might be a pre-processing unit built into the printer, which proceeds to pressure-roll the paper into compliance with what the printer's paper path expects.
Or maybe they've been selling us shitty paper paths on purpose, and the only real difference here is that this printer will finally have a GOOD paper path.;)
My Epson ActionLaser 1500 (hardly a high-end printer in its day, and bought as a refurb) is now 12 years old and is still on its original toner cart, with about 30% left to go. It's probably printed about 7000 pages, judging by how much I've used from of a case of paper of similar vintage. Still works fine, and has had zero maintenance.
The replacement toner kit for this one *is* around $150, but it includes a fresh imaging unit. Even so, the cost of operation is a fraction of that for an inkjet.
Whilst RTFA'ing, I had a similar thought: why is this kid so obsessed with busting kiddie-porners? Could it be that this is his covert route into something he secretly longs for? It wouldn't be the first time a sufficiently-twisted person overreacted against the very thing that most obsesses him.
I think it'll be interesting to see what this kid is doing a few years on down the road. Methinks it might be wise were someone were to hack into HIS computer and keep a close eye on him.;)
I agree absolutely. What this kid did is far more horrifying than what the judge did. That he's being hailed as a hero is outright terrifying.
Not only that, but it's a very short step from vigilante pursuit of evidence to actually planting evidence, because after all you KNOW that $target WOULD do $evil if only he knew where to get $evil, or whatever excuse is politically convenient this week.
As I recall, that was exactly what happened back in the days of the informer leagues you mention.
I seem to have generated an interesting if rather standardized discussion. But you understood my point perfectly. The only license that is truly about equal freedom for everyone is public domain. The GPL is about *forced* sharing: "You can't have any candy unless you give everyone else your recipe."
The GPL is useful to prevent code hoarding, but its function *isn't* to give freedom to all; it is to remove rights from those who use it (it takes away the right to your code's "privacy" so to speak).
AFAIK, ammonia sinks. But it probably doesn't matter if it's leaking as gas or liquid... it'll evaporate in due course. It's probably more of a risk if the fridge uses a propane flame to heat the reservoir, thus has both a potential leak point and ignition all in one handy spot, than when using an electric element. (I don't know which way my neighbour's worked. Mine swung both ways. Needless to say I disconnected that gas line too.:)
You're probably okay so long as there's no rust on the fridge's coils.
Bad combination: leaking ammonia plus leaking propane. Chemically, you wind up with something like TNT.
Had a neighbour in Montana who had a travel trailer with an ammonia-cooled fridge (which tend to leak when they get ancient) and propane heat (which often leaks around the various connectors). One day the two got together and **!BOOM!** Nothing left of the trailer but the frame. Flattened the row of mature pine trees next to it, and the garage (which saved the house)... nothing left of that but matchsticks.
I observed the debris from this debacle, went home, and disconnected my travel trailer's propane heater, which was situated unpleasantly adjacent to its ammonia fridge.
Sounds like a useful approach, especially with those OEM machines and their uniformly barely-adequate PSUs. -- Personally, I think that's why I see such a high death rate in OEM mainboards and PSUs, whereas in clones, they hardly ever die.
Slashdot Mirror
I can attest that Win2k *will* run with a mere 8mb of RAM. It probably wouldn't *install*, but it DOES boot and run. I learned this by accidentally hooking the wrong HD, the one that already had Win2K on it, to the 486DX4-100 that I use as a SIMM tester... which at the time had but 8mb of RAM in it. It took about 3 minutes to boot, and actually ran well enough for light use (about like Win95 on a P75/16mb). I was amazed.
I know what you mean... I've had a few Cyrix CPUs fall on my head, but if I had to buy one... I think I'd rather use an abacus. It'd be faster, and it wouldn't burn the house down either!!
One of my test rigs is a 486DX4-100. On this particular day it had only 8mb of RAM in it. I wanted a boot disk for whatever I was testing, so I grabbed a HD from the pile... and got the one with Win2K on it by mistake. Amazingly, it not only booted up (tho it took about 3 minutes to reach the desktop), it ran well enough to use for basic work.
Doesn't affect all machines. I have a P4-3.06GHz system that presently dual-boots Win98 and WinXP, no problems with either, and it was NOT patched. -- I wonder if the real problem is a timer bug in some hardware.
Um... if the problem arose during the attempt to INSTALL Win9x, that's not Windows; it's a bug in that family of AMD CPUs. Linux wouldn't install on the affected CPUs either. Something about the 32bitness being broken, I forget the details.
I recall one theory that the Book of Mormon was originally intended to be a fantasy novel. Indeed, it follows publishers' strictures for such novels in its day: A "fantastic" story could not be told directly (as is done in modern novels), but it COULD be written as a tale told BY a fantastic visitor TO a mundane. (Publishers then believed that telling such tales directly would be "too unbelievable" thus unsalable.)
:)
Structurally, it somewhat resembles The Worm Ouroboros.
Apparently it was at least somewhat well-researched, tho -- I know someone who does American Indian genealogies, and she says it's quite accurate for that, despite some amazingly, um, undocumentable descriptions (my fave is the one where early Americans fought battles using *steel* swords).
I had a Mormon landlord as a kid, and he dragged us to numerous events. The result of this education was that when those nice young men in their cheap black suits came to the door, I'd haul out my Annotated BoM and *argue* with them, using examples from their own scriptures.
[Disclaimer: I was raised Lutheran, but became atheist as a direct result of Sunday School -- the more I studied the less I believed. However, I don't really care what others believe.]
Never mind the book; what I want is a functioning DHD!
I was being facetious, but yes... paper paths can be an ugly thing, and the simpler they are, the fewer places they can go wrong (and the less swearing one does whilst extracting a paper jam :) And yeah, people here tend to forget it's not just about printing single-sided memos!
You're with Xerox, eh? In that case, let me relate what has been volunteered at me in EVERY conversation I've had in the past couple years, re small-business printers: Xerox needs to seriously rethink their paper paths; constant jamming is the #1 complaint. I know one fellow who prints enough to go thru 50 toner carts a month, and he finally gave up on his Xerox (it's now retired -- warranty, service contract, and all) and went to using only his HP, of similar grade and vintage. (Somewhere in the $3k-$5k range of printers.)
I've been to Xerox presentations and loved some of the ideas they're coming up with (particularly for networked printers), but when I say to someone, "have you looked at the Xerox Whatever model?" and they immediately produce a firsthand horror story, that's something the company needs to be aware of, that they may not be hearing about from their service contractors.
Actually, I have seen an uninstaller create catastrophe a few times, and have become very leery of uninstallers from some sources. Frex, one common problem with database demos is that the uninstaller will delete not only its own stuff, but also the *system* database engine (normally installed by Paradox, dBase, etc.) and then you've got to reinstall that and hope it still works.
But at least with a proper uninstaller, you are *expecting* a certain, hopefully controlled, "catastrophe" -- theoretically affecting only its own files. It doesn't come as a complete surprise!
As to this app, the several folks who tested it all reported variable file deletion, implying the deletion routine DID exist, and was extremely buggy.
Regardless... that it's now been removed and the developer is trying to make amends by opensourcing the app is the best possible result, and the *only* potential route to forgiveness and a chance to rebuild trust.
I know of no other case where the dev has in any way apologized or made amends (usually they either blame users, or take their toys and go home).
Given Reza's own very positive response to the PR disaster, I'm now inclined to give him a second chance.
FUD or not, I'd still be concerned that the Destroy function could go awry, and might delete files it had no business touching. That could be as simple a bug as failing to check where it's logged to before it starts killing files.
I'd also be concerned that a mere typo (or the program misreading the input) while entering a legit serial number could trigger this.
I remember some years ago a particular DOS app would delete all files in the %TEMP% directory at exit. Trouble was, it assumed that all users were savvy enough to have moved the TEMP variable away from the default, which happened to be C:\DOS. So when the program was run, at exit it proceeded to delete the contents of the user's DOS directory. (At the time the coder reacted by saying users who didn't change their TEMP variable were too stupid to live anyway... how is that his determination to make? and if so, why didn't he take steps to protect even stupid users' data??)
Several times, I've had legit software refuse to accept its legit key, and had to go find one somewhere on the net to make it work. Not just small stuff either -- in one case, the app was Win98!!
Anyway, my point is... see how easy it is for the coder to make a mistake that could cost legit users bigtime?!
"That's probably been a limiting factor in sales, which the developer interprets as piracy."
I remember in the previous discussion (linked in TFBlurb) the author of a particular program complained that he'd had several million downloads, but zero registrations. In his mind, all those millions of downloads were "piracy".
Well, I could have told him why no one registered his program: I'd long ago downloaded and tried it, but no way would I pay for it -- it's just not very good, in fact it's probably the most limited, most poorly designed, and least useful of the many apps in its field that I've tried. And there are a ton of better alternatives available for free.
What he didn't grok was that if you want to sell something, it's got to be at least comparable to the competition at that price point. Just because YOU made it and YOU love it doesn't mean it's necessarily something anyone else will feel is worth paying for.
One version of dBase had copy protection that did exactly that (this was back in the era of running programs from a floppy disk). If your initial input wasn't correct, and that included mere typoes or doing something in the wrong order during program startup, the program deleted itself off the floppy, irrecoverably.
The upshot was that once word got around, it became impossible to sell this version at all, and this copy protection scheme soon went away.
As to a program that deletes user data if a bad serial number is entered -- there's always the possibility that a mere TYPO could trigger this. I would never, EVER try such a program even in demo mode, because I could never trust that some bug in the program wouldn't set it off. Hence I'd never even look at the app in question, let alone buy it. And I would never again trust a coder who had implemented such a boobytrap.
IMO it would make more sense to do what the author of Getright now does: if the program detects a bogus serial number, it shuts itself down for 12 hours, and when it lets you restart it, it's back in shareware mode. No destruction, and no discouragement from taking another look at the program, perhaps eventually to buy it.
And I'll bet you loathe bananas, too. ;)
Occurs to me that one solution might be a pre-processing unit built into the printer, which proceeds to pressure-roll the paper into compliance with what the printer's paper path expects.
;)
Or maybe they've been selling us shitty paper paths on purpose, and the only real difference here is that this printer will finally have a GOOD paper path.
My Epson ActionLaser 1500 (hardly a high-end printer in its day, and bought as a refurb) is now 12 years old and is still on its original toner cart, with about 30% left to go. It's probably printed about 7000 pages, judging by how much I've used from of a case of paper of similar vintage. Still works fine, and has had zero maintenance.
The replacement toner kit for this one *is* around $150, but it includes a fresh imaging unit. Even so, the cost of operation is a fraction of that for an inkjet.
I do believe I've used that one myself ;)
:D
.
.
.
.
[hands mdsolar a Golden Aspr^H^H Asimov]
The very same!!
;)
[blink] I wonder if such references are a way to distinguish, ah, slashdotters of distinguished age.
"...a possible cause for rapid climate change in the past."
;)
I had a similar thought, except it involved setting Alaska on fire.
Others might protest, but at least Sam McGee would be pleased
Whilst RTFA'ing, I had a similar thought: why is this kid so obsessed with busting kiddie-porners? Could it be that this is his covert route into something he secretly longs for? It wouldn't be the first time a sufficiently-twisted person overreacted against the very thing that most obsesses him.
;)
I think it'll be interesting to see what this kid is doing a few years on down the road. Methinks it might be wise were someone were to hack into HIS computer and keep a close eye on him.
I agree absolutely. What this kid did is far more horrifying than what the judge did. That he's being hailed as a hero is outright terrifying.
Not only that, but it's a very short step from vigilante pursuit of evidence to actually planting evidence, because after all you KNOW that $target WOULD do $evil if only he knew where to get $evil, or whatever excuse is politically convenient this week.
As I recall, that was exactly what happened back in the days of the informer leagues you mention.
I seem to have generated an interesting if rather standardized discussion. But you understood my point perfectly. The only license that is truly about equal freedom for everyone is public domain. The GPL is about *forced* sharing: "You can't have any candy unless you give everyone else your recipe."
The GPL is useful to prevent code hoarding, but its function *isn't* to give freedom to all; it is to remove rights from those who use it (it takes away the right to your code's "privacy" so to speak).
AFAIK, ammonia sinks. But it probably doesn't matter if it's leaking as gas or liquid... it'll evaporate in due course. It's probably more of a risk if the fridge uses a propane flame to heat the reservoir, thus has both a potential leak point and ignition all in one handy spot, than when using an electric element. (I don't know which way my neighbour's worked. Mine swung both ways. Needless to say I disconnected that gas line too. :)
You're probably okay so long as there's no rust on the fridge's coils.
Bad combination: leaking ammonia plus leaking propane. Chemically, you wind up with something like TNT.
:)
Had a neighbour in Montana who had a travel trailer with an ammonia-cooled fridge (which tend to leak when they get ancient) and propane heat (which often leaks around the various connectors). One day the two got together and **!BOOM!** Nothing left of the trailer but the frame. Flattened the row of mature pine trees next to it, and the garage (which saved the house)... nothing left of that but matchsticks.
I observed the debris from this debacle, went home, and disconnected my travel trailer's propane heater, which was situated unpleasantly adjacent to its ammonia fridge.
I still have =my= trailer.
Sounds like a useful approach, especially with those OEM machines and their uniformly barely-adequate PSUs. -- Personally, I think that's why I see such a high death rate in OEM mainboards and PSUs, whereas in clones, they hardly ever die.
Some friends went to Dizzyland. During the "Small World" ride, they sang this filk, very loudly:
:D
It's a small world after all
We're not satisfied at all
We'll go build one not so small
It's a small, small world!
The ridemongers were not amused.